Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes
by MissNightshade144
Summary: Delphine's reflections upon her labor of love, the long, heart-rending search for Cosima's cure. "Come my darling, take pause and sit, let me spin you gold-silk tales. Of microscopes and bloody hopes, curvetting wintry gales. My thoughts they tread,'pon weary feet, loving words stitched in red hue. Of night to morn, my toil's adorn, each bless'd hour spent with you..."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Well, I've been working on this idea for quite a while, and it's been killing me to have not posted it for so long! I was initially planning on this idea being a short one-shot, but by the time the 'one-shot' hit 30,000+ words, I decided to break it into chapters. The OB hiatus is killing me, and this is the only way to escape back into the incredible world of TMas and CloneClub! I can't say I have too much to say about this one, except that, as I've done in the past, I'll put any French translations at the end of the chapter for Delphine's lines. Oh, and beware, there will be science ahead! My dad being a scientist and me being a science nerd, it was inevitable that it found it's way in here. It is Science Girlfriends after all!**

**I went for a bit of a different structure for this one as well, the italicized, shorter portions in the beginning occurs in the 'present' with the rest of the plaintext occurring as a flashback in Delphine's mind. This first chapter's got a little poem I wrote, my inspiration for the title, but after that is the 'present'-portion, and then the flashback. Hopefully the style's not too hard to follow! And as always, feel free to leave reviews! I absolutely love them! It was the positive reaction to my other OB fic which encouraged me to write this one!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black, that extreme honor belongs to Graeme Manson and John Fawcett. But damn, I wish I did!**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter One

Come my darling, take pause and sit,

Let me spin you gold-silk tales.

Of microscopes and bloody hopes,

Curvetting wintry gales.

My thoughts they tread,'pon weary feet,

Loving words stitched in red hue.

Of night to morn, my toil's adorn

Each bless'd hour spent with you...

_Musty carpets. Darkened corners. Graffiti upon the walls, written in twisted Möbius strips of scrolling colors, painted with fire and breath and the gleam of a giant, unseeing eye. The solitary window that brands its 'RIMBAUD' shadow in the gaps amongst the daylight, the sun moving in tandem. Each of these, so foreign at first, had become the hallmark characteristics of home to me. It was so, that if I went a day or two without hearing the anxious jangle of the screwdriver in the door like a white-eyed mount champing at its bridle, or the wail of a dissident horn beneath the leaden palm of an agitated city driver, I might feel out of place. Comme une, like a… a piece of a puzzle that did not fit. I stood by the large window, staring at the inky sky against the lit buildings, a curious juxtaposition. I suppose my life with her was the same. Au début, I was in foreign land, no idea what I should be doing, or how I should be acting. I was lost whenever I was near her. But now, I was at home wherever she was. Maintenant, je suis seulement perdu quand Cosima n'est pas avec moi. I chuckled humorlessly, the dry sound barely permeating the woolen-soft barrier of quiet about me. C'est ironique, oui?_

A few days had passed since her admission. "I'm sick, Delphine." It was all she had to say. When I came to America, all the way from France, I considered that to be the 'Brave New World'. But not now. Now, in a shoebox-sized loft in Toronto that smelled of disorder with an ironic hint of dish detergent, with my friend or experiment or perhaps even girlfriend, against my side sleeping, with subtle breathing and a halcyon expression, now I was in the real 'Brave New World'. The even more jarring experience had been meeting her clones earlier, and not because the second Sarah snapped herself out of her distraught ranting about Kira she was lunging at me ferociously, screeching something about 'bollocks' which I couldn't quite understand. If Cosima hadn't held her back I have no clue what would have happened. Alison, the other clone, with bangs, stood there watching silently, but her eyes kept darting over to the spot where Felix kept his knives, her fingers twitching around an imaginary blade, which unsettled me as well. Mais, ce n'est pas mon point, my point was, that my aggressive welcoming wasn't the most unsettling part. It was the fact that I looked at the two newcomers and saw Cosima. There was a rough, street-smart, punk Cosima, and a perky, pink tracksuit-wearing Cosima. I suppose it shouldn't be as shocking, I had seen photos before, in Cosima's file she hid. But it was still quite surreal. Alison, the one wearing pink, seemed just as shocked by my appearance as I was with theirs. It was, une soirée intéressante, to say the least. Anyway, it had been a few days later upon that same couch, with Cosima fast asleep, that I began my research. I had waited for her to go to sleep, because I had hoped to look through the files Leekie had given me on her, to see if there were any indications as to what was making her ill. I wasn't quite sure how well she'd take it. The reminder of my past allegiance, that is. The glow of my laptop's screen cast eerie shadows upon the slumbering woman, making her eyes seem darker and her skin paler, comme un fantôme. It made Cosima look even sicker than she was. I kept digging. The files I were given were blank, mockingly so, except now their vagueness threw slurs at me and my poor judgement.

"There is absolutely nothing here." I muttered, closing them down and growling internally. They were so empty that it made me look stupid for ever having gone along with the whole project. From this new angle, with the rose-coloured glasses removed, all my files and assignments were so unclear that I should have been able to see that this new experiment wasn't exactly legal, or ethical. Stupide, stupide… focus! I opened a medical journal I vaguely remembered reading years ago, something about spontaneous tissue death in the lungs. Any form of information would be useful to me as of now.

"Huh?" Cosima murmured, straining to sit up and squinting from poor eyesight. I had taken her glasses off once she fell asleep. I didn't want the frames to bend. She yawned delicately, comme une chatte. She paused briefly, crinkling her brow as she teetered indecisively on whether she should return to sleeping or wake. The rounds of her eyes were a harsh purple against her skin, making her eyes look sunken-in and gaunt. Sickly, even. Cosima shifted, rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand, looking adorably puzzled as to where her glasses had gone. Despite the fact that the golden-green was misty and drugged with sleep, something in how she looked at me reminded me of that afternoon when we'd had sex for the first time. Or more specifically, the time after, lying in her bed while she tangled our fingers into each other's. Both times they had that shimmer of happiness in my presence, a shimmer I felt I didn't deserve. It was quintessentially her, Cosima's eyes with their shimmer and cat's-eye thin lining of black liner. It made me want to kiss her again. Instead, I reached over the laptop, careful not to disturb the keyboard and lose my spot, and plucked her glasses off the table's stained, scratched surface. Absentmindedly, drawing the moment out perhaps, I trailed my fingers across the bubble-like print of where a glass had once sat without a coaster. Taking her glasses in both hands, holding them delicately with two fingers by the edges, I slipped them into place behind her ears, taking the time to stroke my hand against the curve of her jaw. It settled there. The kiss upon her nose was practically required in the moment. It was like Cinderella's suitor replacing sa soulier du verre.

"Bonsoir ma chérie, sens-tu bien?" I asked softly, our faces so close that it was probably unnecessary to speak. One could simply think of what they wanted to say, and the other would be able to read it in their eyes. I could hear each of her breaths perfectly, light and natural. For a few seconds I focused upon them to calm myself down. She straightened up, and I had to forcibly tell myself not to hold her back. She was ill, oui, but she wouldn't take kindly to me coddling her. Besides, with tentative positivity, she hasn't had an attack in the past few days.

"I don't know much of what you just asked. It was a question, right?" she asked cheekily, smiling while readjusting her glasses with her index finger and her thumb. I chuckled, yes I do suppose I have the tendency to slip into French without really thinking it. But her little puzzled-face she made when she tried to understand it was irresistible.

"Oui, I asked if you were feeling well." I smiled sweetly in return, watching her mentally catalogue the phrase, looking for a place somewhere in that brilliantly talented mind of hers, and remembering it there. The effort was terribly endearing.

"Well then oui, je sens bien." She quipped back in an awkward, jumbly Americanised French accent, returning my tentative smile with her own brilliant grin. It was the type that made her eyes sparkle and her face light up, like the ruby head of a match just as it lights. I could feel the warmth from where I sat.

"Very good." I replied, both of us trading giggles of amusement. Personally, I found whenever she tried to speak French beyond cute. She had me hooked by that first 'Enchantée' in the hallway outside the university elevators. I relaxed into the couch, sliding the laptop shut and watching the glowing slit of the screen get thinner and thinner, a blinking eye, before finally closing its lids and falling into sleep. Dusk, a soft, purple carpet of nighttime, rushed in to replace the dim blue light. The graffiti upon the walls looked like monsters, all curved claws and vacant eyes and tableau poses, peering from the shadows. My surroundings were transformed, yet Cosima was still there unchanged, present in the golden-green gleam of her eyes and the sweet, low sound of her breath. It was strangely peaceful, a haven from the thump-thump of the city outside, a heart that beat life and light, lungs that breathed smoke and sound.

"Oi! Would someone open the bloody door?" a high-pitched voice called, clear yet throaty like a violin or the trill of a bugle. Cosima untied herself from the human knot of us, before padding over to the large door, pulling the screwdriver, and yanking the deceivingly-large metal door out of the way. Felix, Sarah's foster sibling if I was correct, stood in the doorway, skinny yet posed like a pipe-cleaner figurine. He tossed the loose tail of his scarf over his shoulder before treading forward, reclaiming his space.

"Oi, Oi Cosima," he greeted, wary of her, yet familiar, before turning his gaze to where I sat on the couch. I was overcome with a feeling that I didn't quite fit where I was. Felix, Sarah, even Alison and Cosima to a lesser extent, were familiar, they blended in to the shadow and the color of the city, all the smooth erratic lines and vibrancies. I, on the other hand, was all rigid and black and white and bone; I was gaunt where they blended in. I stuck out, comment est-ce qu'on dit, comme un sore thumb?

"Et tu Benedict Arnold?" he 'greeted' me, if that counted as a real greeting. The 'et tu' part of it sounded a bit peculiar, since the slim man's heavy British accent, when applied to French, was like shoving a square peg in a circular hole, it didn't fit quite right. The entire greeting was laced with obvious derision, masking less-than-obvious distrust. He didn't seem like the person to be outwardly cruel, but he was probably acting spiteful out of his protective nature. That definitely sounded better than him simply hating me. It made sense, if I could come face-to-face with the version of me that lied to Cosima, the version of me that let Dr. Leekie seduce me with his dreams of grandeur and innovation, I would shun her too.

"Delphine." I awkwardly greeted, standing up and extending my shaky hand. Perhaps he wouldn't notice that my palms were nervously sweating. In all the craziness that occurred recently, what with Kira's disappearance, and Alison signing Leekie's contract, Helena's death, and finally, my appearance, I wasn't sure if we had ever been properly introduced. I also hoped that presenting my actual name would discourage any more name calling. I wasn't even sure what Benedict Arnold meant… Felix stared me down suspiciously, looking me up and down with a scathing pout and furrowed eyebrow. In an effort to hide my nerves, I lowered ma vue to stare at the abstract swirls of colour on his shirt.

"Felix." He replied curtly, shaking my proffered hand tentatively, frankly looking quite baffled by my gesture overall. Using the fact that our hands were joined, he tugged me forward a little so our faces were close together.

"Listen up, if you ever do anything that harms Kira, or Sarah, or even Cosima or Alison I swear I will kick your blonde, truffle-eating arse all the way to Brixton. And that's before I let Sarah at you too. Clear?" he threatened, lowly and evenly. I feared that he'd follow through. Unconsciously, I nodded my head a bit, my eyes feeling too wide and shocked to fit on my face. Cosima heard this though, and I felt her gentle hand materialize between my shoulder blades, rubbing my back a little as she stepped forward, straightening her head and narrowing her dark-lined eyes.

"Felix please." She asked, her voice soft and reassuring to my ears, but edged with warning for his. He stepped back, striding evenly over to the small 'kitchen' area of the apartment. In reality, it was just a rough jutting-out of countertop, surrounded by a few dusty, worn cabinets that could have been picked up off the side of the road. They were all a slightly different shade of brown, and had different handles for each drawer. The wall of cubby-hole like cabinets had no doors, and looked more like it belonged in a workshop than a kitchen, acting as an apartment building for bags of bread, and cups, and a number of other assorted things. One of the drawers had been painted over with some weird phallic demon-thing. Mon dieu.

"Fine. Anyone up for mimosas?" he offered, voice laced with something I thought was sarcasm, clinking around back there. He was looking for something in the cupboard with the demon. Multiple colored bottles of alcohol were produced. Now that he wasn't threatening me, I could really focus on how he actually sounded. The peculiar way in which the letter 'a' sounded like a breathy 'err' and how his sentences rose and fell in a predictable lilt, like ocean tides and waves.

"No thank you, I'm going to keep working." I declined politely, pulling the laptop back on to my lap, determined once again to find her cure. A paper of Cosima's caught my eyes on the table. The ribbons of jagged lines upon paper, her genetic sequence. More clinking behind me. Felix shuffled about.

"All right, oh, and lights stay on! You two are staying here, but I refuse to put up with any sort of lesbian-sex-party-nonsense! I already have to contend with Sarah and Paul shagging in my bed…" he muttered, his voice taut like a guitar string and irritated. It took all I possibly had in me not to keep the redness from covering my entire face at the mention of 'lesbian-sex-party-nonsense'. I was more than a little embarrassed by him mentioning our sex life, or whatever little constituted as our sex life, out loud. Cosima just looked amused at the idea of Sarah having slept with Paul in Felix's bed. A small part of her looked to be considering the idea. I gave her a faux-stern smirk. Jamais, never Cosima. No way. Back to the task at hand, I reached over and grabbed the printout of that portion of her genome. If I remembered correctly, these were the papers that her and that fawning colleague of hers, Scott, were looking at the day I came to visit her. I looked at it, eyes honing in on one spot where brackets had been scribbled in to denote a certain section. Scribbled beneath in red pen:

'_Anomalous for cytochrome c'_

"Hey, what're you doing?" Cosima asked, stretching upwards and craning her neck, trying to look at the sheet. Her eyes were the colour of a bruise, I wanted her to get some rest. I also knew she wouldn't listen to me if I told her so.

'_Making good on my promise to you.' _I mused silently, opening up a new file on my laptop. A spider crawled across the table where the paper had once been, disturbed by my moving it. Its amber-brown bead of a body was propped up by eight little legs, thin like thread or hair, constantly moving. They were so tenuous, so insignificant, that it looked to be hovering above the ground, like the slightest disturbance would shatter the illusion and cause it to collapse in on itself. Like if it stopped moving at its breakneck, frantic pace, it would die. It was just too delicate to exist for too long.

"Finding your cure."

**A/N Comments? Questions? Remarks? Review please!**

**Translations:**

_**Comme une… **_**Like a**

_**Maintenant, je suis seulement perdu quand Cosima n'est pas avec moi… **_**Now, I'm only lost when Cosima isn't with me**

_**C'est ironique, oui?...**_** It's ironic, yes?**

_**Mais ce n'est pas mon point…**_** But that isn't my point**

_**Une soirée intéressante… **_**An interesting evening**

_**Comme un fantôme… **_**Like a ghost**

_**Comme une chatte…**_**Like a cat**

_**Sa soulier du verre… **_**Her glass slipper**

_**Bonsoir ma chérie, sens-tu bien?... **_**Good evening my darling, do you feel okay?**

_**Je sens bien… **_**I feel okay**

_**Comment est-ce qu'on dit, comme un…**_**How do you say, like a…**

_**Ma vue… **_**my view/vision/eyesight**

_**Mon dieu… **_**My god**

_**Jamais…**_** Never**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Hello again! Thank you to everyone who followed the story, I hope it's okay so far! Just like before, italicized is the 'present' plaintext is the flashback, and translations will be at the end of the chapter. (but I think there's less French here than before) Anyway, that's kind of it!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black, I'm not even in a position to pretend I do! I'm just borrowing the characters for a little bit!**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Two

_The light outside was orange now, the sun swelling, expectant, casting beams of light like soft gold and copper. Everything seemed so much more vibrant now, it was my favorite part du journée. Except, where before I would have seen the dusk transform the Seine to a river of buttery amber, of liquid red, the blood of the city, I now saw rapid pulses, flashes of brilliance against the windows and the cars that passed by. The fast pace, the energy here, was such like gunpowder, where a single spark set off a flash-bang of intensity, a few seconds of complete and overwhelming something-ness. Laughs and hollers from the people below drifted upwards to where I sat, I watched a beggar hold up a cardboard sign at yet another tourist, an automaton that people didn't see._

"Whoa, nice place." Cosima muttered, as I flicked on the lights, bringing the entirety of my chrome-and-glass lab. The hair on the back of my neck was prickling, and not with anticipation. It was past midnight, and I was possibly doing one of the stupidest things I'd ever done. But I needed to do it. DYAD's laboratories were strictly off-limits to public, at all times. Of course, technically by breaking allegiance with Leekie, I was public. In fact, I probably blacklisted myself, I wouldn't be surprised if he was looking for me. Not to mention that I brought a clone with me, the people they were hunting down, searching for like a hound after its quarry. Certainement, the stupidest thing I'd ever done. The supplies I needed though, I could only get here. Hopefully, since I hadn't officially told Leekie off , it would just be assumed that I belonged here. From all my researching, I had a few theories as to what may be making her ill, but I needed confirmation. And confirmation would come in the form of a blood test and a biopsy.

"So… what next?" she asked, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, obviously a little nervous. So was I. I rifled through the drawers with my shaky hands, inadvertently knocking things about and sending a few empty syringes clattering to the ground. I could feel my heartbeat thundering as I thought of what I was planning on doing. Behind me, Cosima chuckled humorlessly, a feeble attempt at defusing the tension. I finally found what I was searching for, a kit for taking blood samples, one sharp needle portion, and a few assorted Vacutainer sample tubes.

"Whoa, you're planning on sticking me while your hands are shaking like that?" she jokingly asked, eyes going wide with a bit of real panic. I took a few deep breaths in, depositing the supplies on the nearby counter and taking a few deep breaths. I was shaking, it was so bad that I probably looked like I was having some sort of seizure. I had never been good at handling pressure. Her hands were on my cheeks now, cool from the metal countertop she'd been leaning against, gently trying to steady my body. The coolness only caused me to shiver even more violently. I felt like I was trying to find solid ground, I was trying to grasp at this tangible thing within me and whenever I moved after it, the solidness, the security disappeared like smoke. I looked around at all of this, all of this opulence, these expensive tools, these shiny opportunities, and remembered where they'd come from. What I'd done to get them. The spot at the back of my neck, where Leekie had kissed me, crawled and itched, like his touch was a parasite. Was it visible? My uncleanliness, my traitorousness, my faults.

"Relax babe." She murmured, her lips against my jaw bone, crooked and stiff, a rigid right angle. The feel of her voice against me, against my uncleanliness, this naked guilt, did nothing to quell the shudders. I felt like I might cry.Concentrez-vous! Focus! I need to do this, for Cosima, for her cure. Pull yourself together and get this done! I know how to do this, I know how to shut down like this, I know that for certain. It was exactly what I used to do as soon as those marble-cool and unforgiving hands were against my skin. Block it out. Fais-la pour Cosima.

"D'accord." I murmured, looking around for the rest of the supplies I needed, feeling the numbness in my head, like some foreign drug taking effect. My hand shot out, gesturing for Cosima to hop up on the counter. She pointed her toes when she jumped, like a dancer. The little action itself threatened to tear a great gaping hole in the fabric of my restraint. I stitched myself back up. Taking a little cotton swab, damp with disinfectant, I rubbed it on the inside of one of her elbows, right above where I knew I'd have to draw blood. Technically, I wasn't a medical doctor, but in my time at the DYAD and during my doctoral studies, I'd observed blood samples being collected, even done a few myself. I knew that beneath that little ivory patch of skin, was her median cubital vein. I knew I'd need to hit it to get a sample. I knew that it was commonly used for blood drawing because it's close to the skin, and there were few nerves surrounding it. I did not know, however, why upon tying the tourniquet above the bend of her elbow, and silently gesturing for her to make a fist, why my throat was suddenly blocked up. Why I couldn't speak without it coming out a strained sound. Why I couldn't think without imagining white linen stained by dark, soiled lies. I tapped at the vein to make sure it was dilated, lining up the needle, before looking back up at Cosima. She looked uncomfortable.

"I don't really like needles." She murmured, her cheeks flaring up pink at the admission. For a second, behind my veil of numbness, I somehow forgot that it was Cosima that I was with, that I cared when she hurt. I willed myself to slow down.

"Sorry, ma chérie. Umm, don't focus on it, don't look, tell me about something instead, talk to me about…" hmm… murine models, transgenics, epigenetics, base pairs, molecular encoding, genomes, cloning…

"Dolly! Talk to me about Dolly." Goodness knows why the cloned sheep came to mind, but perhaps it would start another one of Cosima's signature rambles, and she'd be significantly distracted. Then she wouldn't focus on the needles. I resumed my focus on her inner arm, while she began to talk.

"Well, she was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell through nuclear transfer…" she began, gesturing slightly with her other hand. I wrestled with my hesitation, paralyzed for a couple seconds, before backing up, double-checking that the needle was in correctly, and that the collection tube was on securely, before lining it up once again, and quickly pushing it into her skin. I heard the slightest gasp from the other woman before she continued on with her ramble. Stop thinking of it Delphine.

"…scientists transferred the nucleus of one adult ewe into a developing egg cell which had previously been enucleated, before shocking the cell to cause it to fuse …" Redness rushed forward, filling the tube up slowly, ticking past the little volume measures on the side. While it filled I looked back up at Cosima, or around at the room, anything to distract from what I was currently doing. I replaced the sample tube with another one, knowing that I would have to do multiple different tests that would need different conditions and the sort. She continued talking, free hand gesturing vibrantly, like she was painting in midair. I could almost see the gashes and swoops trailing behind her restless fingertips. She was in her own little world, it was something to behold, like peering inside a snow-globe to discover the miniature world, bursting with unseen wonders, lying just past the glass. She was miraculous like that. I was undeserving, my fingers left smudges and distorted the images. How much longer until my unclean unworthiness causes my fingers to shift and the glass to break?

"…Of course, it took multiple tries, and from the 277 cell fusions they managed to produce one cloned sheep, Dolly…" the second tube filled like the first, slowly. I listened to the ticking of the clock in the background, a teeny, tiny noise which seemed to amplify and fill the entire room with its silence. In the absence of any other noise, the little elements swelled and took centre stage. I counted heartbeats, millilitres, clock-ticks, anything to pass the time; anything to keep me sane. I removed the final, filled tube, keeping pressure over the spot where needle met skin with another clean white cotton swab.

"…She ended up dying at age six, young in comparison when other sheep of the same breed averaged a lifespan of eleven or twelve years, of a lung disease which had been prevalent in other animals in the area. It was recognized posthumously that Dolly's telomeres were shorter than those of other sheep her age, which was because she was cloned from an adult sheep, so when she was born her genetic age was already six…" I retracted the needle, keeping the cotton ball pressed there and holding it down with a Band-Aid. Cosima was still rambling, but it was like I couldn't hear the words, they just rushed past my ears, like cars on a freeway, none ever really hitting me. I could feel the pitch of her voice get lower, and I knew she was thinking about her own mortality as a clone. Solely the fact that they were scientifically-created, cloned and modified from God-knows-where, made their cells less stable, made their life more fragile. I didn't like the thought. My eyes refocused on her face, on her movement, her whole-hearted rambling, the way that the outside world seemed immaterial to her, the pointed curve of her eyebrow, the words in her eyes. I pressed my lips to her moving ones, soft and quick, making her look at me, making her stop rambling. A focusing kiss.

"It's over." I murmured, somehow unable to force the elastic grin on my lips to hold. She blushed adorably, snapping her lips shut. Something within the action made that place inside of me crumble, that fortified cage where one keeps all their secrets, where one hides from themselves. She was so painfully vulnerable, so incredibly trusting that it only made me feel even dirtier in comparison. I couldn't lie to her, I just couldn't. My eyes clouded over in a haze like frosted glass.

"Delphine?" she asked, reaching up from her higher vantage point to wrap her arms around my neck. I loved the way she made it sound, the soft, breathiness in the middle, the way her lips curled it upwards at the end, like lavender smoke. Those two simple syllables, that I'd had monogrammed upon lab coats, printed on research documents and theses, that had been purred and shrieked and hollered at me throughout the years, sounded like music when she spoke them. She touched that spot behind my neck. I cringed away.

"I-I have to tell you something." I stuttered, shaking my head. Tears were blurring my eyes. Panic blurred my mind. I couldn't find where my numbness went. Everything inside of me felt squirmy and antsy and uncomfortable. I was shaking again. I felt like someone's hands were rooting around in my insides, since when did I have this much space inside of me? This much emptiness, this much vulnerability?

"Okay." Cosima seemed concerned, but she was more preoccupied in my obvious distress. She was being selfless of course. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I possibly tell her now? How could I mess it up once more? That's all I do apparently, I just mess up and hurt her over and over again, what good am I?

"I slept with Leekie." I blurted out. Speaking tasted like bile against my tongue. I hated it. For a few seconds nothing happened, Cosima didn't seem to register the words, her arms were still soft around my neck, holding me in her warm gaze. And then she stiffened. Her arms fell away. The gaze that had been holding me gently became one that choked me, one that wounded me. It hurt me so much, to the point where I had to remind myself that this silence of hers, the wordless rejection, was intangible. The twisting and crumpling pain in between my ribs felt too real to be caused by something intangible. She shook her head slightly, stepping backwards away from me.

"Cosima please-" I started, taking a step forward. She shot backward at the movement, like a force pushed her away. Like we were magnets, and all of a sudden, someone spun her around and the polarities which used to attract were suddenly repelling. I could feel her magnetic field pushing against me, keeping me from moving, or was it my shame weighing me down, chaining me to the spot, hollowly clanking like bones.

"No, I'm not listening to it, I can't listen anymore, because I already don't know what to believe. I wanted to trust you." her voice took on that thick, waterlogged tone it gets when she's about to cry. I feel ashamed that I'm so well acquainted with that sound. I wanted to tell her that she could trust me, but I doubted that myself. Could she really trust me? Ou suis-je trop d'une menteuse? All I seem to do is hurt her. I opened my mouth, but I couldn't seem to find the words to say. Everything tasted like lies. Why do I do this? Why did I even come back for her in the first place? Would it have just been easier to have left after that first kiss? To leave emotion out of this, to remain untangled? Because now that we're the tangled mess that we are, whenever someone tugs on a strand of my past, a mistake of mine, it tightens around her neck, around my own. I feel scars where the noose tightens. I wonder if I've given her similar ones. She turns around, barely able to shut the door behind her, but I can still hear her haunting sobs echoing up through the hallway as she runs the other way. The walls shout their disapproval in the grey lulls of the echoes.

"Putain!" I growled, the expletive slipping out like marbles in someone's hands. It clattered to the ground with similar fanfare. Tears blurred my eyes as I rubbed my arms, feeling the skin crawling beneath my hands. I felt like, comme une prostituée, like some sort of whore. Cheap, I'd been used by Leekie, against my better judgement. The sensation settled within me, tasting like bile and blood and betrayal. I kicked out in anger, sending a nearby stool jumping away in fright. The action did little to quell the burning in the marrow of my bones. If anything, it only made the impacting foot throb dully.

"Good, I deserve the pain." I muttered. With all the stress my English words sounded foreign, more influenced by my dominant French accent. I skated across the syllables in a familiar dance, the word 'the' sounding more like 'zhee'. I listened to the words over and over in my head, analyzing the syllables, how they rose and fell like curls of smoke, needing the repetition to calm myself. Anything to remove the film of tears and stop the burning. I picked up the blood samples. Labels were already applied, and with a nearby marker I scribbled _Jane Doe_ in where the name was required. I wiped away a tear that hung, cold like stone, upon my cheek. I returned my hand to the sample tubes. The wetness on my thumb made the ink run at the end, blurring the _'oe'_ portion. The colors bled together in an inky nothingness. I tucked them back into my palm, walking out of the lab space, out of the chrome-and-glass that had once stirred anticipation in my gut. I walked out of the door and straight into a white lab coat.

"Whoa, je suis desolée, I did not see you there." I covered, staring at the person I'd just run right into. The shorter, woman with the straight black hair wasn't exactly familiar, but I worked with many others at the DYAD Institute, I didn't have much time to remember names. Her name was Dr. Elliston or something, I wasn't sure of a first name though.

"Ah, Dr. Cormier. What are you doing here so late?" she quirked a harshly-manicured brow, staring up at me in confusion and judgement. Her arms were crossed, she was all angles and rigid lines. Like at any moment she'd become another piece of equipment in this linear, edgy lab. Like she belonged.

"Umm, nothing, just dropping off some samples from a current experiment of mine to the lab?" I couldn't lie effectively, which seemed stupid to me. How could I seemingly lie so easily to Cosima, someone I actually cared about, when I couldn't even tell a little white lie to this person I've talked to a handful of times in my life? The other woman grumbled disapprovingly, a hint of something I couldn't quite name flickering through her dark eyes. Her gaze was cold and uncomfortable, her eyes were the color of bullets. I swore she uttered "_just give them to your Leekie; I'm sure __**he'll**__ take care of it all."_ under her breath, but I shrugged it off. I'd spent much too much time sitting on that particular secret, and now I'm haunting myself with it. She stepped aside, as if permitting me to pass, but not removing the grasp of her gaze upon my shoulders all the while. I stiffly walked over to the lab attendant's window. Placing the samples upon the counter.

"Run a chem panel, tox screen, and an LDH isoenzymes test." I muttered, watching him place the samples aside by the machines, to be dealt with later. The words tasted like cardboard. Everything around me was lackluster in this new period, this time of after. After I told, after I was truthful. I wasn't sure whether the after was more painful than the before. He made a note on the chart, checking off all the tests requested, before running a hand through his greasy hair, the color of an oil stain. I decided that was my 'goodbye' and stepped away. I hoped this would work, desperately.

"Goodnight Cormier." Someone murmured drily behind me. I didn't bother looking back; I didn't even bother thinking about the voice longer than it took me to hear it. All I did was looked ahead of me, wondering to myself, where the hell do I go now?

**A/N thank you for reading, as always, and an advance thank-you for anyone who reviews, they're greatly appreciated! Cosima's rant about Dolly the sheep (Who's an interesting case for any of you out there who are curious/interested about cloning and genetics and all the other things mentioned in Orphan Black!) was kind of inspired by her tendency to ramble off about these obscure little science-y topics when something remotely connected was brought up. (Skype sessions with Sarah and Felix about the flying-fish-blade anyone?) and as a side-note, the other clones and characters will be coming in shortly! Thank you for reading!**

**Translations:**

_**Du journée…**_** Of the day**

_**Certainement…**_** Certainly**

_**Concentrez-vous…**_** Concentrate!**

_**Fais-la pour… **_**Do it for…**

_**D'accord…**_**Okay**

_**Ou suis-je trop d'une menteuse?...**_** Or am I too much of a liar?**

_**Putain!... **_**Fuck/Damn it!**

_**Comme une prostituée… **_**Like a prostitute**

_**Je suis desolée… **_**I'm sorry**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N Firstly, before I get into anything else I have to give a huge thank you to those who reviewed last chapter! When I received both of them I ended up launching into an incredibly dorky happy dance which made my family members think I'm crazy! This one is the same as the last two, italicized first part is 'present' plaintext is the flashback, although the italicized-quotation-portion in the middle of the flashback is the text of Delphine's letter that she writes, not a 'present' section, those are always the beginning, and the beginning only! Not too many French bits in this one I'm afraid, it tends to vary, but as always the translations are in the final A/N. Happy reading!**

**-Nightshade**

**I do not own, attempt to own, or attempt to lie about owning Orphan Black.**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Three

_Night had fallen, or at least as close to night as the city could reach. Nothing ever quite rested here. The sky became a hazy indigo, while the streets below were lit brilliantly, crowds of people bustling about, laughing and talking, the noise drifting upwards. I turned away from the light, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dim light of Felix's loft. The shadows made everything seem softer, with each step I sunk into the plush velvet of nighttime. I moved to the space aside, the alcove where burgundy sheets stood out like garnet against the shades of greys and blacks. She lay beneath the sheet, a loose crimson shroud, her body as fragile and perfect as glass._

I walked for what felt like hours, or days, or perhaps it was only a minute. All I could use to judge the passing of time was the rhythmic click-click of my shoes against the sidewalk beneath me. The throngs of people around me felt positively suffocating, and wherever I tried to step there was always an elbow or a foot or a torso in the way. Yet somehow I still felt alone. Like life was just rushing around me and I had no say in it. Je suis dans un bulle, un bulle fait du tristesse. The pavement beneath me was damp from rain or something, and it glistened with light from nearby buildings. I followed the ribbon-strip walkway, taking rights and lefts until I didn't know where I was at all.

"Je suis desolée." I murmured to no one at all. Sorry. Growing up, we were told that by saying that word, those two little syllables, that all would be forgiven. Friends would remain friends, wounds would heal as if they'd never happened, and everything would be fixed. You had the power to heal every hurt you ever caused, and it was all in one little word. It became something magical, in a way. But now it's not magical at all. Sorry's just the word with so many expectations foisted upon it that it falls in upon itself. It's cliché now, it loses its magic. Words became useless when sorry really counts. I was sure that it was raining now, because I felt tiny icy fingers creeping beneath my shirt. I looked up to see white fluff falling from the sky, snow, not rain. It fell down and down until it was trampled beneath boots or sullied among the dirt and slush at the sides of the roads. I kept my eyes down and kept walking. Walking, walking, walking. Perhaps I was crying, I felt like I should be crying. I felt like I needed to show some sort of physical atonement for what I've done, but all I felt was frozen. I felt too much like I'd been cheated to cry. Perhaps I was also a victim here. I felt the plain, grey sidewalk beneath my feet morph into cobblestones, shimmering an oily black in the city night. The unevenness only made the aching in my feet more prominent. Every part of me ached now, my feet, my head, my heart. I turned a corner and was struck by the postcard-picture view I was shown.

"Incroyable." I murmured under my breath, looking around the scene. The square was surrounded by little shops, the types that were all niche and artisanal, one-of-a-kind. The centre of the area though, was strung up with lights, like the tiny white ones that would normally be strung up on un arbre de Noël. They made a spider's-web pattern across where it would normally be nothing but hazy night, artificial stars, lighting the inky sky with gold and silver. All the old buildings, the cobblestones, the people that walked by, the clean fresh snow in the gutters, all shimmered like precious metals, like liquid starlight. It looked like a scene from a romantic movie. I strode to the centre, letting the light bathe the backs of my eyes. Something about it, the serene setting, the cold wind blowing, made Cosima's absence hurt more. My hand felt cold, it was missing hers. If she were here, I would grasp our connected hands and pull her against me, watching as her light brown eyes glowed with the scenery and with happiness. She'd murmur something adorably dorky, and then blush rose pink. I'd smile back at her, and kiss her nose, which was reddened from the cold. Then I'd pull her against my chest, wrap my arm around her waist, and coax her into a subtle dance, swaying back and forth to inaudible music while she rested her head against my chest. She'd hum something while I felt my heart beating against her temple. We wouldn't care if there were other people around, we wouldn't notice them at all. I had to do something, I realized, wiping at my teary eyes, and accidentally knocking into a pedestrian.

"I'm sorry." I murmured. The faceless person grunted incoherently before bustling ahead. Sorry. Even if the word wouldn't do anything to change Cosima's mind, I know that. Hell, I wouldn't want it to. Because I've messed up before, and a 'sorry' there didn't stop her from hurting. But I had to find some way to express it. I couldn't let this hurt go on. With as incredibly stupid as I am, I still need her. I need Cosima in my life. I need someone to rest their head against my chest, to listen to my heartbeat and still be amazed at the flawed creature it supports. I kept walking, ducking into the stores that were still open, buzzing lazily like smoked beehives. I looked into displays simply because I needed the visual noise to distract me, to fixate my attention upon. I wasn't planning on stumbling upon anything, but when I saw it I couldn't help but think of her. The pendant was blatantly unique, a silvery honeycomb-like pattern that, to the layperson meant nothing, but to Cosima and I, made perfect sense. A necklace with the molecular structure of oxytocin, the 'cuddle hormone' as it was commonly termed. One that was connected to pair bonding and love, between partners. The perfect balance of sentiment and science. It gave me an idea, an image of a worthy attempt at a sorry. I checked out, walking out of the boutique with a renewed fire in my chest. I was going to try, maybe I didn't deserve Cosima, maybe she never wanted to see me again, but I was going to try. I attempted to retrace my steps through the city, ducking into another store to purchase a blank card and a pen. Once I felt like I might know my way back to the loft, I stopped, to rest and to think. I knelt on the sidewalk, out of the way of foot traffic, and a little bit protected from the cold that was slowly seeping into my bones. Placing the card, a blank white piece of cardstock essentially, upon my knee, I whipped out the pen and began to write what I wished I could say.

"_Cosima,_

_I know I don't deserve your time, I've been terrible and made more mistakes with you than I ever foresaw. But I also needed to tell you something. As for the gift attached, I couldn't find one that expressed remorse, so I went with the strongest emotion I felt whenever I thought of you. Love. I saw it and couldn't help thinking that, perhaps if we found ourselves in better times and we had stumbled upon it, it would have begun an adorable, science-heavy ramble about the physiological effects of oxytocin. Somehow you'd manage to make molecular biology sound like flirting, and I'd fall a little more in love with you than I had before. I love you Cosima, I love you so much that I hate myself for everything that I've done. For everything I let Leekie do to me For the fact that you even need such an explanation, one that I'm ashamed to give, but one you deserve nonetheless. _

_When it began, I was fresh out of school, and just like you, fascinated by the science. But I was also scared. I was scared of the lack of opportunities, I was scared that I'd never get to make a difference like I wanted, I was afraid I'd let my family down, because all I ever told them I wanted to do, was science. And there I found myself, a shiny new degree in my hand, in a scary new country, and nowhere to turn. So one night, yes, I met a man who was a scientist too, one who was charismatic and hopeful and powerful. One who made me forget that I was afraid, because he was so sure of himself that I felt that the world must be concrete and stable. Perhaps it was my vulnerability, or the drinks he'd ordered while he talked about cloning pluripotent stem cells, I don't know what did me in. All I know is that, the morning after, all I felt was regret, and disgust, and betrayal. Like I'd betrayed myself. Of course, this charismatic scientist was Leekie, and he offered me a position at the DYAD. I took it because this was my opportunity, my chance to do science, my chance to fix something. It was as if I thought the new innovations I'd be a part of would fix the fact that I'd betrayed myself. Sold myself out. But I couldn't escape that tryst I'd ensnared myself in, because every time I'd make a move away he threatened to ruin me, to expose how I really ended up with my position. Because I was below him and I was the woman, it would be my reputation ruined. So I was stuck. The last thing I wanted was to let my sins, my being stuck, harm you in any way. _

_I'm not making any excuses for myself, because I have none. I'm trying to admit that I screwed up, that I'm so, terribly, deeply sorry for hurting you, ma chérie. That is all I am, like it has permeated my every cell, I am sorry. And I wish, and hope, and pray that you could find it in yourself to let me in, to give me one last chance, because we cannot be finished yet. You still haven't gotten me 'baked' as you called it, we still haven't finished making 'crazy science', and I still haven't found your cure. there are so many things we haven't done, and my only hope is that you can find some way, in that big, pure heart of yours, to let this flawed, remorseful, stuck-down, lovesick woman back in to your life. _

_I love you Cosima, je t'aime._

_Delphine"_

I had written so much that the scratchy, spastic letters had made their way to the backside of the card. The pen's ink bled in some places, where the snowflakes, or a muddy water droplet thrown from a bike wheel or boot's heel landed. The writing varied from shaky, to light, to nearly black where I'd pressed so hard to leave an indent in the paper. It was flawed yet sincere, just like I was. I walked down the streets, listening to horns screeching, people chattering, shoes smacking earth, the far-off hollering of someone haunted by too many demons, the even farther-off squealing of a siren, attending to someone else's mess. Everything strung together into some sort of cacophonous, dissonant urban symphony. I passed an old man, hunched against the buildings like I had been, except he seemed to be frozen to the spot. Like he had been there for a long while. His face was grizzled and weather-worn, slightly shrunken-in and traversed by lines and creases like a thumbprint. He was painted in shades of grey, blending against the foot of the building, hidden among the slush and neglect and clap-clap of feet. I back-tracked, swinging into a coffee joint and ordering a large, hot coffee. When I approached him again, I offered it to him, that and ten dollars from my wallet, the last of the money I had on me. He accepted the offering with a gap-toothed smile, eyes shining like coals. When I gave it to him, I noticed his hands were cold and rough, like they were hewn of brick and stone themselves, like he was a part of the city itself.

"Get yourself something to eat." I murmured, flashing a tight smile down at him. I felt that gaping hole in my chest, the place that Leekie had latched upon like a parasite, the place that Cosima soothed and healed, warm a bit. The gesture for another person made me feel a bit better I suppose, a little less worse about what a horrible person I was.

"God bless you Ma'am." I heard shouted after me, nearly lost to the torrent of other sounds around me. The words settled peculiarly in my head. I wasn't exactly religious in any manner, so hearing it was a bit of a shock to me, especially since I'm usually surrounded by people who worship at the altar of science alone. But the gesture made me smile a little, despite the fact that I knew I needed much more than a blessing to dig myself out of the hole I'd been digging. As I dropped the discreetly-wrapped necklace and card outside of Felix's door, addressed to Cosima, before knocking gently and leaving before I could possibly be seen, I couldn't help but hope to the same God, that Cosima would accept my apology. That my attempt at a sorry was enough to bridge the gap

**A/N Yeah, Delphine's in a bit of a tough spot. The place I mentioned, with the lights and cobblestones and little shops is in fact real, it's in The Distillery District, in Toronto, where the show is filmed, so I thought it was feasible that Delphine could stumble upon it! I've been there once before and there is a certain charm, a sense of romance and warmth about the place. …And there is actually a store that sells molecular-structure necklaces there, just not the one I described here, that one I took some creative leeway with. Anyways, thank you for reading, as always, and again as always, please leave a review!**

**Translations:**

_**Je suis dans un bulle, un bulle fait du tristesse… **_**I'm in a bubble, a bubble made of sadness**

_**Je suis desolée… **_**I'm sorry**

_**Incroyable… **_**Incredible**

_**Je t'aime…**_** I love you (you'll be familiar with that one by the end of this fic!)**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Why hello again! It's later than I should be awake to witness currently, but I had to get this posted! I'm sorry for the absence for the last few days, unfortunately my Christmas vacation was kinda foiled when I ended up getting sick to the point where I could hardly talk without coughing, or stand up without getting dizzy and stumbling over. But I felt I couldn't delay this any longer! Delphine's not really in the greatest place at the moment, but thing'll be looking up for her, and her relationship with Cosima shortly. Just stay tuned!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black!**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Four

_She looked so delicate when she was asleep. I know that it is perhaps, a cliché, but it was so true. Her every curve and feature was placid and calm, like a lake at midnight. Her little snuffling breaths were just terribly adorable, and the way that she'd sleepily pat the covers beside her, looking for me, sent a pang through my chest. A part of me wanted to slip right in beside her, but a greater part of me wanted to let her rest for as long as possible. She needed her strength. There were still things that we hadn't done, she still hadn't gotten me 'baked', nor was I ever able to find out if her hands ever stayed still when she talked, or what happened to the crinkles in her eyes when she stopped laughing, we still never ate those truffles I had brought her, I'm pretty sure that the chocolates were still sitting in her house in Minnesota, getting all weird and white like old chocolate does. There was a lot we still hadn't done. But there were also some things that we had._

I found a spot on a park bench to rest that night, and started back for the DYAD Institute early in the morning. In my hastened arrival to the city, I hadn't thought of getting a hotel room for myself. I couldn't get one now, I had hardly any money left in my pockets, and most of my savings was in a bank account controlled by the Institute. I couldn't use any without alerting them to where I was. Of course, because I hadn't planned on my secret being revealed, I hadn't prepared for where I should go if I couldn't go to Cosima. I'd wandered for most of the night, walking through throngs of people, pulsing like blood through the streets. It wasn't until the pulse slowed that I'd bothered to rest, until the laughter of people exiting clubs had quieted, until it had gotten so dark that the tree branches looked like fractures amidst the deep aubergine nighttime sky. But once morning light broke through, DYAD was the first place I considered going. I still had to pick up Cosima's blood test results, after all. Hopefully it would be a quick in-and-out, and no one would notice me. It didn't really occur to me, until I got into the elevator to the lab floors and saw myself in its mirrored walls, that I looked like absolute merde. My hair was frizzy on one side from moisture, and oddly flat on the other. What little makeup I had been wearing was smudged around my eyes, blending with the dark bags there from the lack of sleep. My shoes were scuffed beyond belief, there was a giant run in one of the legs of my stockings, and my skirt and blouse were showing the wear-and-tear that a night soaking in slush caused. I was still shivering from the cold, and I smelled somewhat similar to the bus that I had taken to get to this city in the first place. As soon as I stepped off the elevator I headed straight for the washrooms, snagging an elastic band off the front desk, and finding an owner-less lab coat hanging on a hook in the hallway. As I entered the bathroom there was only one other person there, an unfamiliar redhead washing her hands.

"Rough night Cormier?" she asked, quirking her eyebrow and smirking knowingly, cruelly almost. I nodded imperceptibly, because I had indeed, had a rough night.

"You could say that." I murmured, closing my eyes against the pounding in my head. She just smirked in response, shutting off the tap with a paper towel and shoving past me, knocking against my arm with her shoulder. In my tired state, I shrugged it off, I walked into things and people all the time. Staring into the mirror, I splashed cold water against my face, washing away the old makeup and waking me up considerably. My stomach growled but I ignored it. I would be fine for one night without food. I'd gone longer when doing write-ups for experiments after-hours. Taking the elastic band—which I knew full well I'd have to cut out of my hair later—I pulled my short wavy hair into a stumpy ponytail, satisfied that it didn't look as bad now. With a lab coat thrown over my damp and dirty clothes, it looked a little less bad. If I was being optimistic, I would even say that one couldn't tell I'd spent the night wandering the streets before crashing on a park bench. I left the restroom with my head held a little higher, striding into the lab area, and over to my workstation, which I found surprisingly empty.

"Hey?" I queried, to no one in particular, before turning to the woman beside me, a fellow PhD in immunology, "Where are the blood test results I dropped off at the lab yesterday?" I gestured at the empty countertop near my microscope, where I had envisioned the test being dropped off. She sneered at me derisively, taking me a little surprised. She flicked her gloved hands at me while she spoke, reminding me of Cosima, but in a weird way. I didn't like the association.

"No clue. Why don't you ask your beloved Leekie?" she shot back, before returning to her work in front of her. As soon as I heard the name, my heart dropped to the floor beneath me. Coldness rushed in to fill its spot. Someone had overheard me last night. Everyone knows now. Forget the fact that Leekie will probably hunt me down for this, since he certainly wouldn't stop with the law-breaking games at illegally patenting humans. My name will be forever discredited as a scientist, I'll always have this tarnish upon my record, how will I ever find a cure for Cosima if no facility will hire me?

"You know Cormier, you could just go to the lab yourself and ask. I know you've gotten used to screwing around to get what you need, perhaps you could convince the lab attendant to put a rush on it?" Dr. Elliston sneered as she walked past, bumping against my stool and nearly sending me tumbling. I swore I heard her evilly chuckle as she passed. Every eye in the room was hard and shiny, sharpened flints against my skin. I pulled my lab coat tighter around me, as if I could hide within it. As if it could hide the abject nakedness I was feeling at the moment. A voice across the room called out, deeper and distinctly male;

"Do you have an hourly rate? Or are your services only for bosses?" it called out, causing hushed whispers and snickers to litter the room in little bursts like popcorn kernels. I turned my back, like not looking at it made it go away. The gazes and whispers still crawled up my legs like ants and centipedes, little tingly legs that ran up through the rip in my stockings, against my legs, under my skirt and up under my shirt, peeling away the layers. Something about the entire thing felt so terribly high school, so mean and nasty comme ça. For a second the twittering and hushed voices in the background weren't my fellow scientists, but the popular girls at my old school, mocking me for arriving early to science class and reading medical journals during free period. But I shook it off, focusing on the present, and more specifically, the hush that had fallen over the open lab area. Someone was walking.

"Your labs, Dr. Cormier." A voice called out, but I didn't look up. I didn't want to risk meeting the gazes of my other colleagues. The ones whispering under their breath about how 'that's where the expression French whore came about'. I simply saw the labs dumped upon the clean white countertop in front of me, a few paper printouts upon which sat yet another jibe at me. A thong, one of those scary, lacy black things, with a few American dollar bills tucked in what I supposed was the waistband, for good measure. My cheeks burned red with embarrassment. It wasn't mine of course, I didn't even own something this revealing, since before Cosima the only person who would see such a thing was Leekie, which I dreaded too much to ever consider. But apparently the rest of the room found it hilarious. Blindly, I grabbed the test results from under it and left, walking in quick little steps, trying but unable to hide the fact that I was utterly humiliated. Humiliated, that's what I am. I'm a joke at my place of work and Cosima hates me et tout est merde… I rushed out into the streets, blindly weaving in and outside of people as they walked against me, trying not to cry while reading the lab results. At first glance nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the tests, but all I could see right now was a greyish blur, so that wasn't saying much. I could barely see the old man from last night smile at me as I walked down the alley to Felix's loft. I don't know what I'm doing here, je ne sais pas! Mais je n'ai pas un maison ici, ou un chambre dans un hôtel, ou quelque place à aller, j'ai rien! I have nothing here except Cosima, and the other clones to an extent. As I stumbled through the alleyway, melting slush creeping through my shoes, a pair of scruffy-looking men, both shifty, one shuffling about impatiently, pulled away from their secretive conversation to stare at me, before one offered money and the other offered a packet of something I couldn't identify. They melded back into the shadows, slinking off. An old woman pushing a grocery cart piled high with blankets and bottles, clanking and creaking, looked me up and down, her deeply creased face hardly visible in the dying streetlamp-light. A far-off hooting and hollering echoed through the darkened alleyways. I was scared, scared and alone and so very cold, until I came upon a metal-grated door leading to stairs. The place was familiar, metal mesh biting into my palms as it did the day I arrived here. Despite the pain, it almost felt like home as I climbed the stairs, taking a seat outside of Felix's loft door, out of the cold, mercifully.

"…Fee! How many bloody times must I tell you…" I heard Sarah's shrill, accented voice raise up, making it through the door just barely. That was another thing altogether. Even if I was lucky enough, had the stars align perfectly, had been blessed enough to have Cosima let me back in, her other clones and Felix wouldn't be so hospitable. Sarah's, what is the word, scrappy? She'd be on me in a second if I hurt Cosima, she's protective and fierce, yet noble like that. Alison is a quieter one, but something tells me that, where Sarah might simply wound and cuss at me, Alison might actually kill me. I didn't miss the way that she eyed the knives in the knife block in the loft when we first met. Felix wasn't someone whom I was afraid of, but he seemed like someone I didn't want to upset, someone I didn't want to disappoint. I turned back to the files I'd been clutching, slightly crumpled and a little damp from the moist winter air. I looked at the values, mentally crosschecking them. Initial values for red and white blood cell count looked normal, perhaps her hemoglobin was slightly low, but the coughing up blood could account for the mild anemia… I flipped through the sheets, checking and double checking. Listening to the crinkling of the paper, and the muffled sounds of Sarah berating Felix for some unknown reason. As I had suspected, and as my research also suggested, the two values that stood out as abnormal.

"…I don't care if they're Alison's bloody WeightWatchers, it's the only thing left in the damn fridge and I'm not touching that shite with a ten foot pole!..." I took a closer look at the abnormalities. One was her platelet count, which would explain why the bleeding in her lungs is so difficult to stop… I remembered reading a journal which stated that anomalies in cytochrome c, like the genetic tests revealed, caused low platelets in some cases, which could cause issues with blood clotting perhaps? Maybe why the bleeding is so profuse?… her LDH levels are worrisome too, they're indicative of tissue breakdown, and because they're so high it could reinforce everyone's theory of cell degeneration…

"... God even knows what shite they put in those to make it 'fat free'! And now I've got to go to the bloody store, yeah?..." I sighed as my eyes slipped shut. Mon Dieu I'm exhausted. Everything inside my head felt fuzzy, and I could feel my heartbeat throbbing in my temples. A night spent walking about and a quick bit of shut-eye on a bench is not at all restful. If only I could just drift off here…

"Oi!" someone screeched, and suddenly I was flat with my back against the wall. Adrenaline banished any sense of exhaustion I could have been feeling. For less than a second, I was preparing, like a prey animal, to lash out against the hand that shoved me against the wall. The blurry female figure, slightly-curly brunette hair, roughened accent, deepening scowl, almost-bared fang-like teeth, went from indistinguishable, to crystalline-clear in an instant. It took a few seconds to realize that Sarah hadn't touched me, I had simply backed myself against the wall in my fright.

"I'm sorry, I'd leave but I don't know where to go…" I started, getting to my feet slowly, keeping my hands up in a surrendering manner. I was a few centimetres taller than the other woman, but she clearly had the upper hand here. I had none of her fighting spirit in me. I was about as defeated as anyone got. I was sitting against a wall in a back-alley loft, with a rip in my stockings, hair falling out of an elastic band, and a stained lab coat wrapped around my waist like a security blanket. I was, what is it they say, the poster child for defeat? Sarah stepped forward, her hand shooting out and catching me by the shoulder. I was pushed even harder against the wall.

"You… You don't get to be sorry! It wasn't good enough that you narked to Leekie about all of us other clones, that you put my daughter, my daughter in danger, and hurt Cos, yeah? But you shagged the bastard as well?" she growled, stalking even closer. I could feel her breathing as chills down my spine, her hand upon my shoulder was also squeezing at my throat. If I wasn't so afraid then I'd have chuckled at the irony of it all. They were all clones yes, but none of them were Cosima. Hey might all look the same, but they were completely different people. The British woman's posture reminded me somewhat of an aggressive dog, snarling, snapping, yet for some reason refusing to bite.

"… and after all of that, you have the bollocks to sit out here, because you have nowhere to go?!" I hung my head, shrinking into the wall a little bit more. I wished I could be like the homeless old man outside, to just become invisible, part of the stonework. I nodded a little, a tear escaped my shadowed lids.

"Why the hell are you crying? And why do you look like you spent the night on the side of a road?" she asked, stepping back just a bit, but leaving her hand against my shoulder. She looked me up and down, I knew exactly how I looked. Comme merde.

"Not road no, a bench." I murmured, wiping at my eyes as more tears rushed forward to take their place. I was shivering again, cold from a draft or something. Too damn vulnerable. Sarah's eyes had softened, to a warm gold not unlike the way Cosima looked at me. Except instead of love, there was a weird murky feeling there, like she sympathized with me, wanted to protect me, and wanted to kill me, all in one. I didn't know much of her story or anything, but the way that her demeanor towards me changed a little suggested to me that she was familiar with the experience of a night on the streets. She shot me a sterner look, inching forward slightly before removing her arm. She shucked her leather jacket off of her shoulders, before tossing it loosely over mine, surprising me a little.

"You're shivering like a lost puppy." She murmured, before stepping back and walking away. Her footsteps, fast and light against the steps, sounded like church bells. I sighed a little, slightly confused, before I sat back against the wall. I pulled the jacket onto my frame, warmed by the protection, and warmed a little by the gesture behind it. The walls around me were brightly tattooed with urban street art, letters that curled and dipped like smoke, cheery caricatures that crawled about upon the brickwork. It was so foreign to me, all the color, but somehow it was still comforting. I shivered once more, letting my eyes slip shut when I felt a new, soft hand upon my shoulder, tracing my jawline. My eyelids felt heavy, and I was so incredibly exhausted, but I reluctantly opened one, then the other, before focusing on the figure above me. Blurry glasses and dreadlocks, leached of color and energy.

"C-Cosima?" I queried, struggling to sit up. The name slipped from my lips like sand, like roughness and instinct and something that cannot be stopped. Like the blood and the coughing, ironically. Her eyes were reddened and watery, and a small line of blood hung at the corner of her mouth, which was turned down into a frown. She looked at me exhaustedly, like she didn't know what to make of my presence. I felt like she could turn me around, shake me about, inspect me head to toe, without moving. Her breath was quick, a fluttering intake, stilted and nearly stifled, before she finally spoke.

"Delphine?"

**A/N so that's it for now, I hope to post the next chapter very shortly after this one, since you guys have been so patient over the past few days. Other than that, I don't have much to say! If you're seeing this, I hope you're having a lovely morning/afternoon/evening/night, and thank you for reading! And as always, if you have a few seconds to spare, leave a review? **

**Translations:**

_**Comme ça… **_**Like that**

_**Et tout est merde… **_**And everything is shit**

_**Je ne sais pas! Mais je n'ai pas un maison ici, ou un chambre dans un hôtel, ou quelque place à aller, j'ai rien!... **_**I don't know! But I don't have a home here, or a room in a hotel, or anywhere to go, I have nothing!**

_**Mon Dieu… **_**My God**

_**Comme merde… **_**Like shit**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N and here's the extra chapter I promised! Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this one as well!**

**-Nightshade**

**I do not own Orphan Black**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Five

_I moved back a bit from the bed, not wanting to disturb her rest. If it wasn't weird or stalker-like to admit though, I still sat there and watched her sleep for a few minutes. It was simply her gravity, the way we seemed to orbit around the other, made it hard for me to move away from her. Every breath she took, that slightest ripple of sound, was sweet relief to me. It was peculiar, because I'd never been so completely enamored, so tied to and tangled within someone else. It was nice to have that, the mental silence to simply recognize that. Before I had met Cosima, I hadn't understood the value of silence. It always struck me as a form of isolation. Silence was the little room where one went to hide away, when all other defenses had been expended, when all that was left was shutting down. But with her around, I realized the autre côte of silence, like the silvery thumbprint of a nickel. I realized that, when words are no longer sufficient, one can read the other's thoughts in the layered folio of their irises, see them tattooed, curled and iridescent like oil in water, upon the bare skin of shoulders and calves and chests. You could hear love in the lull between their breaths. It had gotten so that we could have a discussion, a debate, a rhapsody, simply by how one sighed lowly or blinked their eyes. In a way, it was better, c'etait le meilleur._

We stood there for a second, well I suppose to be exact I was sitting. But neither of us seemed to know what to do with the other at that point in time. There was something there, a tangible filament, stretched between us, and if one of us moved in the slightest it felt like it would either send us careening towards the other, or simply snap into pieces. I rubbed at my eye, certain that there was a ghastly darkness lurking in circles there. Cosima, though tired and stiff, somehow managed to look graceful and delicate. The circles around her bespectacled eyes were the color of dewy violets. Her frail frame was still graceful and supple like a silver-leaved willow.

"I am so sorry." I murmured. I wished I could have added a 'ma chérie' to my admission, but at the moment I felt it unfair. I'd been so horrible to her, hurt her so many times, that I no longer should be allowed to refer to her as my darling. Or my anything, for that matter. I could see tears brimming around her eyes. It took all my resolve, bolstered by my exhaustion, to not get up and wipe them away. She was shaking, like me, but unlike me. I shivered from the cold, out of loneliness, some primal way to stop oneself from going completely numb. Cosima shivered because she was the opposite of numb, she was unbridled emotion, quaking unstably in her small form, hardly able to contain it. She looked like she was going to speak, her mouth hung open in a way that suggested words were to come. But instead she just closed it again and shuddered. Her entire form seemed to blur slightly at the edges, ou peut-être it was just my stale, defeated tears?

"You look like hell." Was all she managed to get out before the sobbing overtook her, choking any other words until they ceased to exist. This was a different kind of crying from what I'd seen before. This was visceral, the type of anguish that makes itself known with distressed, deep wails that shook her entire form. I got up tentatively, moving towards her with the intent to soothe her. Her breaths weren't deep and even like I'd come to love, they were harsh snatches of air, deep, like she was drowning. As soon as I put my hand upon her shoulder it was smacked away violently, sharply, the striking of a snake. She let out another shriek before walking off into the loft, her steps unsteady. I followed.

"Cosima, please calm down." I begged softly, in a voice so small that it was washed away by the raging swells of tears. They disintegrated in the surf, were dragged by the current to the blackness, the bottom of the ocean. She made a movement with her hands, like the slashing of a knife, not even facing me. I could feel the blades against my skin though. Her hurt cut to my core, paring flesh like it was butter, shredding sinew and muscle and everything that held me together and made me human.

"No! I'm not doing anything you say! Damn it Delphine, you lied to me, you looked through my personal belongings, you tampered with the lives of two other girls, girls whom I've come to consider as family, you sold us all out and you played me while doing it, and you slept with Leekie, and worst of all…" the rest of it was drowned out by another set of sobs, loud, chest-shaking cries. A part of me worried that we were going to get noise complaints. Another part of me worried that she was becoming delirious.

"I'm so, terribly sorry Cosima please, you must believe me, I never meant any of it to harm you-" I was cut off as her head snapped up. Her eyes were bloodshot, tears dripped from her jawbone and her nose. The bloodstain in the corner of her mouth was long forgotten. Despite all her fluid emotion, the rolling, saccadic pulse of anger and injury, it all seemed to fragment. In the instant that my words, smooth and heavy like marbles, clattered to the floor, she turned to concrete. A roll of thunder jostled about outdoors. Her stony expression didn't flinch at the noise.

"Are you sorry? Really? Are you sorry for making me love you? Because I am! I hate that part of myself, I hate every part of me that still softens at your name, I-I'm repulsed by the side of me that still wants you here. I'm sorry that I fell in love with you, I'm sorry that I did one of the stupidest things possible, yet here I still am! I'm still here damn it, I'm still here, pathetic, hurt, heartbroken, and unable to stop goddamn loving you!" her voice was roughened and hoarse, so that her pain was tangible in each word. I could feel it, hot, red splatters of agony that painted the walls, the floors, my own hands, everything which it came in contact with. There wasn't anything within visible range that wasn't bespattered with her emotional gore. Her cement, statuesque façade, her jaw set so firmly that the rigid muscles looks like steel began to shift, cracks appeared. Her emotion was unstable, some sort of undiscovered radioactive element, decaying under the pressure. I lunged forward as her one ankle buckled beneath her, grabbing at her slim figure and lifting it before she hit the ground.

"I'm sorry I did all this. I hadn't meant it to be this way, I mean that truthfully. This all… Monitoring… You… it was all supposed to be a job. Leekie's power over me, power I foolishly gave to him to wield, wasn't supposed to harm anyone but me. But then I met you, and none of it was true anymore. You may feel sorry for loving me, which I accept. J'ai merdé. But for me, loving you… it's the one thing I'm not sorry for…" I murmured, my words lost to the roaring beneath the skin of her shoulder that my lips were pressed against. Painfully, naturally, she folded into my embrace, her small fists beating at my back, clawing and lashing, as I rubbed her back in long strokes. I stilled the quavering in her shoulders, untangled the tautness in her neck, felt her wounded sobs ring against my own lungs, my own heart. The struggling hands stopped fighting, and now clutched at the back of my neck with the same violent fervor, refusing to let me go. She let in a shaky breath. One, two, three, her going lightheaded, limp in my arms. She still clung, like her form was painted upon my own body. I lay her on the couch, and I sat down next to her. She wouldn't let me go any further. Rain pounded against the window, the brick, droplets smacking with the succession and ceremony of shotgun fire. I felt each one against my back. Cosima's tears dropped to the floor with the same hollow smack. It then struck me, cruelly, that her wounded rant had been the first time she'd ever told me she loved me. The defeated irony felt like an empty bullet casing clinking to the floor

"I'm so sorry for hurting you, I'm so sorry, je suis desolée, I'm sorry…" I murmured into the crook of her neck. I kept repeating it, like a mantra, low and rhythmic. It fell against my back like whip strokes. Some peculiar form of self-flagellation, a method of leaving scars so I'd never forget, of cleansing away the pain I'd caused. I was snatched from my intangible self-punishment when Cosima's lips attacked mine. They were soft yet chapped, greedy and needing against mine. Her hands bunched in my lab coat, tangling in the loose fabric at the back, pulling me even closer. She pushed her tongue in between my lips, searching my own out as she fought for dominance and I fought for air. She smelled like sweat, like tears, like salt and wounds and the metallic tang of blood. Everything was so real, so harsh and tangible and visceral, in a heady yet violent combination that clutched at me, as real as the hands against my back. We stood like that for a second, before the shorter woman pulled away, looking up at me with murky eyes. They were guarded all of a sudden.

"Ho-ly shite! What the hell is going on with the bloody screaming like a banshee?" Felix yelled as he emerged from behind the beaded curtain that separated the bathroom from the main space in the loft. The slim man locked eyes with me, his pouted lips curling downwards immediately. All-in-all, he looked like he'd just eaten a piece of spoiled food. I gathered though, by the crescent-gleam of knowledge in his eyes, that he'd overheard most of our discussion, the shock was simply for show.

"Leekie not have you booked for tonight?" he quipped coldly, striding across the room to the kitchen, not sparing me another glance. I stiffened, Cosima stiffened. We stood frozen, stiff against the other as both of us processed the words. For me, the words cut deep, the insult, the implication. All I was now, to everyone around me, was a prostitute. Someone who could be bought and sold like cattle. To my surprise, Cosima, the woman quivering with tension from her toes to the tips of each of her dreads, spoke up first.

"Shove off Felix." She murmured, sounding half-unsure and barely there when she said it, but the gesture still surprised me. She wasn't even sure of what she was doing, but she was still defending me. Felix seemed similarly startled, but recovered easily, tossing the loose tail of his scarf over his shoulder and scoffing slightly.

"Don't defend me." I muttered, too low for Felix to catch, but apparently evident enough that Cosima could pick it up. In response, she jabbed me in the side, discreetly, with the tip of her index finger.

"Fine. This particular soap-opera-storyline bores me anyway." Felix grabbed a coat from where it sat, puddled in a chair, throwing it over his shoulders. For a split second, his eyes fixated upon Cosima and still avoiding mine, I swore that he softened a little.

"Just be careful 'round her." He murmured, a little softer, before swirling around in a sweeping, flagrant motion, the long coat brushing the floor like a cape. The fluid, dramatic motion lingered slightly after the large metal 'door' slammed shut. I took another deep breath out, listening to how the small motion stirred the dust and the fabrics and such amongst the room. I counted numbers in my head, stared at the curls of paint upon the walls until I could feel them against the backs of my eyes, I twitched a little nervously. I felt a small, spastic part of me crave a cigarette. Anything to distract me from the mass of emotion, the issues to be dealt with.

"I just want to forget." Cosima murmured, looking just as lost in her own thoughts. I wished I could second that. There was much I wished to forget too. The words sunk in, permeating my skin and slipping around in my gut before finally falling into place. I lunged forward, not unlike that afternoon at her apartment in Minnesota, capturing her lips within mine. I wanted to forget too. I wanted to forget the harshness of his mouth against mine, the revulsion I'd feel creeping up in my chest. The bile in the back of my throat, the needle-jabs as his fingerprints tattooed themselves against my clean skin. The taste of his aftershave which lingered like a ghost, the sandpaper-feel of his skin, his hair, his life against mine. And for a split second, with Cosima stiller than a statue beneath me, I regretted my action. She didn't want me, she didn't want this. I was pushed back, so our faces were centimetres apart.

"Oh, and I'm always going to defend you, you pain-in-the-ass. I may be stupid, and naïve, and loaded with regrets, but I still care about you. You're my pain-in-the-ass. Mine, not his." Her tone was harsh, still embittered, but the jab towards me was softened, almost playful. She didn't mean to insult. All of a sudden, she sprung to life beneath me. Hands dug into my soiled lab coat-back, blunt nails scraping and digging themselves in vehemently. My kiss was overtaken when a quick set of teeth dragged against my lower lip. I could feel her sharp intake of breath, needy, hot against the skin of my face. Soothing the soft bite that had been laid there seconds before, a soft, warm tongue laved itself over my bottom lip, probing at the seam of my mouth before withdrawing immediately. Heartbeats thundered against my own chest, a hastened, feverish pace being set. Cosima was everywhere at once and it was almost disorienting with the force of it all. Somehow she'd managed to get rid of the lab coat without my noticing, and her hands made their way up the back of my shirt. Her tongue was inside my mouth, teasing against my own. I could taste her moans. Her fingers traced my shoulder blades, digging into the skin there desperately, ten little points of dull pain dragging me closer. I didn't fight back, I remained malleable beneath her touch. I deserved the pain. My lips were bruised, she tasted like blood and desperation.

Somehow, her roughness, her seeming lack of care, didn't make a difference. Because when Leekie was rough with me, it was indeed out of a lack of care. But even in Cosima's roughness, I couldn't feel anything other than wanted and protective. Every bite or nip was followed with an impossibly tender kiss or lick, quelling any pain. Her hands dug against me with the pads of her fingers, cautions not to scratch too badly or draw blood. Each aggressive action was followed up with one of gentleness. A peculiar duality. Without even speaking, I knew both how powerful and dominant the petite woman was, and a promise not to ever abuse that power. So that each touch only left me craving more. Hands burned against my back, sides, searing away the filth, stripping away my dirty clothes, peeling away the skin that had been tarnished by him. Until it was only her and me, me and her, and a determination to forget so fierce, that its curled flames scarred my palms dare I tried to handle it.

**A/N Okay, I've had a long night editing and formatting these, I'm calling it a night. Please, if you have the time, leave a review!**

**Translations:**

_**Autre côte… **_**Other side**

_**C'etait le meilleur… **_**It was the best**

_**Ou peut-être…**_** Or perhaps**

_**J'ai merdé… **_**I've screwed up**

_**Je suis desolée…**_** I'm sorry**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N I finally finished the huge culminating project fof my English class that's been hanging over my heads! Any of you who have read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller will sympathize. A great read, one I thoroughly enjoyed, just not a quick read by any means. Anyways, here's the next chapter! And I wanna give a little shout-out to the dedicated guest reviewer who's reviewed almost every update so far, thank you for your continued feedback! I hope you're still enjoying the story, for everyone out there reading!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black!**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Six

_I counted breaths, listening to the sweet, low sound of her lungs inflating and deflating. I was well past a thousand when I stood up, groaning. I'd been still so long that my muscles pulled and refused movement as if they were stone or wood, nonliving. I peered out into the loft, where nighttime had taken up residence, its only company being the cold golden light of the streetlamps, blending into the darkness like pastels, like the meeting point of right and wrong, like two lovers entwined. Where one would suddenly find themselves incapable of separating the two unless one disappeared completely. It had quieted some outside, the only noise that registered was the far-off growling of an engine and the rumbling murmur of a few, tired people. I'd learned, over the past many months, that there reached a certain point at nighttime where everything in life was at peace. Granted, this was one of the few times I could witness that time without the glaring of a computer screen or microscope in front of me. It felt like some sort of fairy tale. Like, if one listened hard enough, they could hear the ethereal, rumbling breaths of giant beasts, invisible and asleep. Everything and nothing was foreign. Everything and nothing was perfect._

I lay there, as the night perished, breathing a final, honey-dawn breath, before sunlight crept its fingers above the horizon. An arm lay atop my chest, rising and falling with each breath I took. I could feel everything around me, from the slightest breeze against my calf where the sheets had come askew, to where the mattress had given way, cradling my bare spine. I stared straight ahead, trying not to let the burning against my eyelids progress past that. It was embarrassing enough the first time, I refused to cry once more. It hadn't technically been a lie when I had told that to Cosima, I did cry after sex with boys too. Except that was because the boy was Leekie, and I would cry because of how betrayed I felt, how I felt numb, and tears simply happened to spill over my lids. With Cosima, I cried because I was feeling so much all at once, and I didn't think I deserved to feel it all. I didn't deserve her caring, her gentleness with my body, her patience with my inexperience, the way she'd stay awake after and simply hold me in her gaze, prolonging the moment. Futilely, a tear trickled out from the corner of my eye, slowly clinging there like a pearl before rolling off. A warm hand caught it as it fell. The arm on my chest was quivering now, shaking as my breaths became less regular.

"Hey, you alright?" Cosima's husky voice queried. I could tell that she was tired, exhausted, but she still forced that brightness into her eyes. She worried for me. The thought made me shake even harder. I couldn't even reply to her. I lay on my side, curling inward like a living comma, wishing my curly blonde hair would hide my face. Like the sun coaxing a flower to open, a gentle hand grasped my cheek, making me look her in the eye. They were endless, deep and tiled with a million different shades of gold and brown, twin vessels overflowing with love. The sight made me cry even harder. I didn't deserve it. Without missing a beat, a warm body was against mine, all curves and softness and forgiving, pulling me inward. Making me accept it. She whispered against my hair, words that made no sense, some sort of code, unintended to be broken.

"You're fine." She murmured, my forehead against her throat and her lips against my forehead. She kissed me there as she murmured. I could feel her words, mere vibrations in her chest. Her actions spoke louder. She traced patterns against my back, light, invisible calligraphy that skated softly over the tender scratches that had been inflicted there earlier. I could feel the freshness, the dewy taste of forgiveness in each chaste kiss. The thought made me shake even more. I didn't know why. No more words came from her lips, it was like she knew how ineffectual they were. How words could be used to manipulate, embellish, lie, cheat, beg, exaggerate, and never be true.

"I don't deserve any of this, I've been terrible to you." I blubbered ungracefully, not even caring that I was crying anymore. I saw Cosima's eyebrows tighten up, the muscle in her neck stiffen ever so slightly. For a second I worried that she would agree avec moi.

"Yes, you've made mistakes, that's totally true. But you never meant to hurt me, or at least I believe so." She murmured back, looking through me with the intensity of her eyes. I could feel the words being printed against the back of my skull as she spoke. A part of me wanted to cry even more, because I didn't ever mean to hurt her, and I did and I hated that and I always will. But she's so incredibly perfect, this creature, this human being, this woman. She's so incredibly perfect that she's somehow been able to find it within herself to accept that I'm not perfect at all. That I'm this terribly imperfect creature who's completely lost in foreign territory, dragging my imperfections behind me in burlap sacks, the only things I can claim to be mine. I've never been with a woman before, je n'ai jamais été avec quelq'un qui makes me feel so much, who makes me want to be perfect but still makes me relish the imperfections because those little cracks and pockmarks are filled by their presence. I've never been with someone who can make me feel so incredibly safe and protected while wearing nothing at all, but so incredibly vulnerable beneath my clothes. I've never had someone in my life who made love more than just a word someone says when they don't want to be alone. Suddenly, I felt as though I had been staring for too long, that the lull in conversation had become too heavy to bear. I struggled to fill the gap.

"I'm trying to find your cure." I reminded, the printout of the lab results coming to my mind. The words were the first things to reach my mouth, they were on the forefront of my mind, they always were. In a way, it was almost like admitting it, it was like saying that I loved her, yet still, comment est-ce qu'on dit, chickening out? Because I felt that I couldn't really admit it yet, because there was still so much unknown about my feelings and the scientist in me demanded that everything be charted, labelled, graphed out and familiarized before it could be named. Apparently though, there was no logic for love, no equation to quantify it, no dichotomous key to identify it, no litmus test to indicate its presence. Cosima, realizing this, or perhaps just grabbing a hold of the new topic of conversation, straightened up, clearing her throat and holding the maroon sheets to her chest, red against ivory, like blood against skin.

"How's that going?" she asked, her voice somewhat grave, yet still managing to maintain that teasing, light, cheeky air to it. I could tell that the cheekiness was false, all sparkles and feathers and colors to distract from the actual nerves she was feeling. I chose not to comment on it though, I felt that she deserved that little bit of privacy. How exactly is it going though? In theory I have a cause, but no cure yet, not to mention I will never be allowed back in the DYAD labs again.

"Making progress." I answered euphemistically, not really liking the fact that I had a reason, yet zero methods of actually curing her. She nodded understandingly, a stony stiffness, like tombstones, emanating from the action. She went silent again, shyly taking my hand in hers and, like that first time, fiddling with it, toying with the interlocked fingers that wove together like ropes. Her eyes were far away, twin tunnels with a nickel glinting in the sun on the other end, lost in thought. I could tell that she was thinking about what I'd done, simply by the tension in her hand and the angles of her brows. I knew I wasn't forgiven, that I was aware. Last night had been shocking, and as it progressed, it grew rougher and more aggressive. One would get the sense that Cosima had no regard at all for my feelings. In reality though, it was the opposite. The reason she was so rough, so aggressive, the reason the scratches on my back and thighs, the bite on my neck stung slightly in the cool morning air and against the sheets, was that she did care. She cared so damn much, that it hurt her, that it burned and stabbed and bled within her, like the red in her lungs. And the only cure, the only way to alleviate the symptoms, was to scar and wound me like I had scarred and wounded her. As soon as it was over, in the tautness and the trembling, the holding afterwards, she was softer than humanly possible, blurring into my figure to the point that I couldn't tell where I ended and she began. Everything she felt, I felt too, each breath she took registered as a tightening in my own chest, the ridges and falls of my back against her hands tingled in my fingertips.

"S'okay." She murmured slightly, though the soft words did nothing to quell the urgency I felt whenever the word 'cure' popped to mind. They couldn't soothe the disarray, the complete chaos within my head. I used to love order, that's why I went into science, because everything had its place, everything had an explanation. Life could be defined linearly as a series of theorems and experimental models. The periodic table fell in rows and columns, logically organized. Living things were classified, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Motion, energy, acceleration was translated into vectors, numbers, lines upon a grid. Battle lines, starting lines, scars and veins, everything was linear and neat. Cosima ruined that, though. She came along and rearranged the periodic table, so elements grouped together were no more similar than comparing les pommes et rocking chairs. Her delicate hands unstrung the constellations, twisting them about and replacing them in the wrong order, a meaningless jumble of stars, tangled like shoelaces, glinting flinty points of nothingness. Senseless points of data on a graph. Nothing made sense anymore. Pain meant pleasure, right meant wrong, honesty meant betrayal, genetic engineering meant terrible mistakes. Breathing meant blood. Blood, blood, blood. As soon as I thought the word, Cosima curled upon herself, a flash of ivory and non-bone and fluidity as she hacked. Her hands tangled in the sheets which fell away from her body, her limbs curled and pale like a sun-bleached shell, like the nautilus tattooed upon her wrist. With her hands otherwise occupied in keeping her sitting up, she ended up burying her face in her knees, spluttering and coughing and drowning within herself.

"Merde." I muttered, snatching un mouchoir from le boite upon the cluttered bedside table, too preoccupied to even care much that I'd knocked a pair of handcuffs and God-knows-what-other types of Felix's sexual paraphernalia to the floor. The attack was violent, perhaps worse than I'd ever seen before. Every muscle in her back was taut and visible, her hands fisted within the red sheets, her skin was flushed from exertion and tinted a bloody hue from the rising sun. Red sky in morning, means a warning. I moved behind her, rubbing her back and trying to help her hold her head up, trying to clear her airway. The more she curled the harder her lungs fought. I could see blood staining where her face tucked against her knees. A droplet, barely hidden from view, rolled down the top of her thigh, rolling like a rusty grain among the pale white sand of an hourglass.

"Shh… Relax mon cœur, calme-toi…" I hushed, my voice soft as wind over sand. Ignoring the blood on her knees, I coaxed her to look upward, staring at the ceiling and opening her throat. I received a gurgling sound in return, more panicked coughing. Tears stabbed at the corners of my eyes, needle-jabs that invaded my focus. It couldn't happen. I needed my entire focus upon Cosima. Tests. The papers are in my lab coat, which is somewhere in the apartment. I needed the papers. The woman let out a keening moan, a mixture of the swan song of a wounded animal, and a sob. I hoped that the latter was the more accurate.

"Breathe through your nose chérie, just relax Cosima." I murmured, waiting and waiting, my ear against her back, for her to take a breath. In the flashing, the wild, frantic rolling of my eye, her skin was blue. The edges of my perception were dyed an inky hue, the colors ran and bled as I breathed faster, worrying and worrying and letting my heart run away with my worries. I closed my eyes, hummed, rested my chin upon her shoulder and my temple to her neck. Empty hands counted intercostal spaces, the stop-start, white-red of the cage around her lungs. With my eyes closed, I trailed my fingers upon her back, reading the freckles there blindly, the braille texts only a lover can interpret. Breaths were snatchy and pernicious, a wild horse. As soon as they were within reach they'd rear up, screeching, marble-eyes-rolling and snatching up control from one's hands so fast it leaves a mark. I opened my eyes to red against white, a straight line where blood had dripped, from her cracked lips, down her chin and down her throat. Down, down, descending. I wiped it away, cleaning off the rusty smears against the parchment-pristineness of her thighs. I offered her a tissue, letting her spit out the mouthful of blood she'd accumulated. I rubbed at her bare shoulders, staring at my hands against her back. Little crescent-moons of red were there, blood that had somehow found its way under my fingernails. The sound of coughing gets under my skin too. I kiss her upon the cheek, not letting her shy away out of self-disgust.

"Okay." I whispered, more of a self-reassurance than anything. A peculiar twitchy, nervous feeling overtook me after watching Cosima's attack, like I'd swallowed boiling lead, like I had two mice running around in my chest cavity, just an indefinable feeling of discomfort. She's dying I think. She was dying and as of now I have nothing to save her. I must save her. There is no other option.

"I still haven't really forgiven the Leekie thing." She murmured, her back still turned to me. I sat up, keeping the sheet pulled up to cover my chest. I knew she shouldn't have, it was almost reassuring to hear her say so. I hadn't forgiven myself either really. Je ne sais pas whether I ever really would. To fill the silence I traced the freckles upon her back with my eyelines, connecting the constellations that only I knew existed. Mapping unknown territory. Every muscle in her back was taut and tense, carved out of marble with the fluidity and restrained energy of a stretched elastic. I ran my hands over them, feeling them smooth away beneath my cool palms.

"I know." I murmured, silently beckoning her to lay back down with me, like my hands were magnets and somehow they could pull her closer. The air around us was still, thick and choking with the smells of dust and sweat and silence, wrapping around my neck like scarves. Keeping one hand rubbing small circles upon the porcelain curve of her spine, slowly rubbing her back, I brushed my quite-messy hair out of my eyes haphazardly. I swore that I could still smell the sweet musky, so very human and tangible scent of Cosima, somewhere mingled in with all the others. Last night was a blur frankly, scraps of night-black velvet and linen and leather, stitched together with slashes and half-moon nail-cuts, embroidered with sweat and tears and some violent undercurrent of needy desperation.

"I love you." she murmured back, turning her head to look at me. Her voice was so soft, whispering of velvet against skin, yet fracturing in the middle. I could feel the love in my chest, fluttering and gasping like a thousand beating wings, swish-swishing and lifting and never laying still. Love was a restless feeling, I realized. Or perhaps, Cosima's love was the restless feeling. It wasn't a tame emotion, it roared and paced like a lion, twitched and bolted like a rabbit, jumped and swooped like a swallow. It was something so unbearably wild that it felt peculiar trapped within my ribcage. Partly an honor to behold, and partly a sadness to be kept caged.

"Je t'aime aussi." Through the white bars of my cage, I felt a whispering of feathers escape. It lightened. Cosima lay back down to face me. Her breathing was still stilted, a gasping, jolting as it limped between breathing and not-breath, hardly clearing the gap. She was on her stomach now, the sheet having fallen away from her back, her head resting upon the pillow. I was about to still my hand, to pull it from my gentle ministrations upon her canvas-back, when she whimpered softly. It was weak and devoid of energy. Like death. She's dying I think.

"Don't stop? It feels nice, the-the urge to cough isn't as bad." She murmured, her voice sticky with bleeding. I saw, as she talked, the back of her tongue was tinted red. I tucked a tissue beneath her cheek, in case there was any more blood, to protect Felix's pillows. The man would already be objecting to us 'shagging' in his bed as he so eloquently put it. I let my hand rest upon her cheek for a second longer, looking down upon her in what could only be described as awe. I found a robe on a nearby chair, recognizing it to be Cosima's, from back in Minnesota, from the familiar silky feel against my fingertips. I shrugged it on, blocking out the memory of the events after I had donned it. They were sullied.

"D'accord." I was fairly sure she didn't understand the French, but something in the way she sighed softly, tenderly, made me think she understood perfectly. I rubbed her back softly, listening to the soft little breaking sounds she made, spluttering unhappily, even stopping once more to cough. Each little breaking sound broke my heart that much more, speaking in whispers and murmurs, scratchy, seizing letters amongst the dust, reminding me. She's dying, she's dying, she's dying I know.

**A/N reviews are absolutely lovely? Leave one if you have time, pretty please?**

**Translations:**

_**Avec moi…**_** With me**

_**Je n'ai jamais été avec quelq'un qui… **_**I've never been with someone who**

_**Comment est-ce qu'on dit… **_**How do you say**

_**Merde… **_**Shit**

_**Un mouchoir… **_**A tissue/Kleenex**

_**Le boite… **_**The box**

_**Mon cœur, calme-toi… **_**My heart, calm down**

_**Je t'aime aussi… **_**I love you too**

_**D'accord… **_**Okay**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N Here goes another update! I've been editing this as opposed to practicing this huge presentation I have for my English class, but this was more enjoyable, and I'm not sure what we're doing for this presentation, so I might need a little extra luck on this one… Anyways, thank you so, so, so much to the two people who reviewed last chapter, I loved seeing some new names there, because that means that new people are reading and enjoying as well and it makes me every sort of happy to know that. So, anyways, first italicized bit is the 'present' and then within the plaintext there's a tiny italicized portion which is Delphine remembering one of her first conversations with Alison (I had to add that in!) so, I hope y'all enjoy this one!**

**-Nightshade**

**I do not own Orphan Black (in fact, I'm so tired from returning to school that it took me three attempts to spell "Orphan Black" without messing up, that definitely proves I'm not worthy of owning it.)**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Seven

_I tinkered about the kitchen, really just trying to pass the time. There wasn't much here that was foreign anymore. It was a bit confusing, I suppose, the entire concept. One expects that when you fall in love, it's new and sparkling and addictive, but once you begin semi-cohabitating with the person (I suppose that's what one could call our relationship at this stage, Cosima and I) the magic disappears. The person becomes a regular part of everyday life, loses that shiny-newness. They become more human, more flawed. You realize that they have habits like leaving the toothpaste cap unscrewed, or forgetting to put the milk back into the fridge. You temper love with the slightest dash of pique. But with Cosima that didn't happen. In fact, the last time she'd left the milk out on the counter, I'd nearly cried with relief at the fact that she was alive and able to do that. Able to irk me in the most endearing fashion. It was something that only Cosima knew how to do. Anyone else's flaws would have become immediately apparent under my scrutiny, eyes focused like a microscope, restless and unsatisfied. I suppose that's what love truly is, vouz voyez, that flipping of one's world over, like a winking, silvery coin flipping head over tail through the air. Where love means pain, and where irritation meant happiness, and where spoiling milk on a dusty, scarred countertop was a relief._

I swept a hand across the kitchen counters, feeling the scars and ripples, the circles where beer bottles and cups have been left, the occasional burn left by a cigarette or some sort of cooking implement perhaps. It was almost like braille, where you could run your hands upon it and learn what went on in the past. Currently I'd taken a break to re-focus my eyes before returning to the glowing screen I'd had set up on Felix's kitchen counter. The entire space was dominated by my recently-acquired supplies, the large scanning electron microscope being the item which commanded the most attention, surrounded by smaller tools and bits of paraphernalia. I turned away to open a program on my laptop, starting a search engine while remembering the great lengths I had to go to get all this equipment. The greatest length? Namely, Alison Hendrix, and confronting the soccer-mom clone a week and a half prior...

"_I'm sorry, you plan on doing what?" the prim clone asked me, whirling about with the restrained poise of a ballet dancer. Her eyes were scathing, burning into my own. I hardly saw the resemblance to Cosima at this point. The identical-appearance-thing was a shock at first, but after meeting them multiple times, the differences usurped the similarities. There was a foreignness in Alison's rigidity, her coldness, the manner in which her eyes flitted about the room, scanning, darting, always on the lookout for threats. There was an animal wariness about her. Some sort of feral fear, hidden in the bubble vests and yoga pants and pink._

"_I need to find a cure for Cosima." I restated, calmly, feeling very much under threat. Sarah no longer looked at me threateningly, Felix was slowly warming to my presence—or at least becoming indifferent—but Alison still looked at me like an adversary. As soon as I'd brought the topic up, her eyes went steely and cold, reflecting horrific images of medical tests and lab rats in cages, spinning their wheels and hoping for some sort of reprieve. But she'd been spending a little more time here recently, something about troubles with her husband, Donnie was it? De toute façon, if she was going to be around more often, I felt the need to make it clear that I was no threat._

"_And you plan on doing that how? Last I heard you got yourself a one way ticket out of—" she stopped, eyebrows crinkling up and mouth puckering like she suddenly had a bad taste in her mouth. I had remembered someone, Sarah or Cosima, having told me that Alison didn't let them use the 'C-word' so it made sense that she wouldn't want to make much reference to the institute and scientists that had essentially created her._

"_The DYAD Institute?" I supplied for her, watching her scowl deepen ever-so-slightly before she curtly nodded her head. Her question was a valid one, how a discredited scientist, especially one with a history of having participated in an illegal and unethical human cloning experiment, would go about finding lab space._

"_Yes, that. As far as I'm aware this 'cure' if you even find one, isn't something you can just cook up in your average household kitchen, am I correct?..." kitchen… an idea popped into my head, adding atop the initial one. something so crazy, and so unlikely to even work, that I nearly smacked my head against the coffee table in front of me out of sheer astonishment. But it just might be our only hope._

"_Sarah mentioned you having some substantial amount of money?" I asked tentatively, watching as, predictably, the uptight soccer-mom went rigid and shut down. I swore that her eye was twitching out of sheer frustration and shock. I had no money though, at least not enough to get us anywhere. I'd come over from Paris recently, I'd set up what little savings I had after the move in a bank account provided by the Institute. They'd even purchased an apartment for me near the lab, close enough to the university in Minnesota so the ruse of "PhD student" seemed plausible. Little had I realized that all that DYAD had done for me back then, only made it harder for me to sever all ties. I'd had to withdraw what little money I could take without it being noticed, cut up the bank card, and simply disappear._

"_You can't be serious!" she fumed, tossing her hands up in the air, voice taking on a shrill tone not unlike the screeching of metal-against-metal made when one drives their car into another. I held my hands up, a supplicating gesture, hoping that she wouldn't wake Cosima. The poor dreadlocked woman had been exhausted recently, the illness obviously taking its toll on her stamina. The fit she'd had last night had been one of the worst she'd ever had to endure. She had been coughing and hacking for almost half an hour, a painful, agonizing half an hour of redness and stilted breaths that limped like injured deer. Once the night faded into a milky dawn, she was sweaty and tired, and had once thrown up from the pure physical exertion. Understandably, it took a while for the both of us to relax long enough to fall asleep._

"_Please Alison, listen to me. I need equipment to keep researching, expensive equipment, yes, but vital. This cure, it might not only help Cosima. You all are genetic identicals, yes? What would happen if you or Sarah were to fall ill? What if it's something Kira inherited? This affects you all, and if I can save her, it might help you all." I begged, hoping she didn't hear my voice crack upon the 'if'. It was a fairly big if, but I couldn't let it be an 'if'. Cosima will recover, I don't care if I die of exhaustion, slumped over a petri dish culturing cells, I will find the cure. Alison was taken aback by the implication, and let her rabbit-quick mind, with the same paranoia and omnipresent fear of a prey animal, run wild with the possibility of falling ill. Perhaps it was cruel of me to even suggest it, but frankly I had no time for niceties and for sugar-coating things. It was a very real possibility, and I expressed that. The woman in front of me rocked a little on her feet, thinking, her arms crossed over her body defensively. She huffed irritably before answering._

"_Fine. How much do you need?"_

A sizeable sum of the "Emergency Defense Fund" and a night spent scanning eBay and laboratory supply websites later (which surprisingly had a lot of the equipment I needed) I had set up a fairly functional lab space in Felix's kitchen. It was a good thing that I'd been able to get most of what I needed, because without it I'd be nowhere. When I'd asked the slim man if I could take his blender apart to see if I could perhaps use the parts to build some sort of centrifuge, his eyes went wider than dinner plates. I took that answer as a non. I jotted down notes on my laptop, taking down results. Felix entered unceremoniously, the door banging hollowly, scattering my thoughts.

"Oi! What the hell are you doing? How am I supposed to bloody cook?" he asked, tossing his hands up in the air out of exasperation. The tired, morning-stained, frayed part of me desperately wanted to quip back with some incisive comment about how Cosima's health is more important than any hypothetical cooking he could possibly do.

"I've never seen you cook." I retorted, returning to my workspace and looking for the materials I needed. Felix scoffed, a gesture that had become fairly familiar to me during the time that I'd stayed here. Before I simply interpreted his, what do they say, sassiness? Anyways, I interpreted it as animosity, when in reality, I gathered that it was kind of how he just interacted with people. I took it as a good sign. He stayed quiet for a second, mulling over my retort, before replying in a slightly softer tone.

"What are you even bloody doing, anyway?" he asked, as I grabbed the sample container and placed it under the microscope's lens, focusing it until the picture on screen was visible. I pushed my goggles out of the way, setting down the syringe I was holding in one gloved hand and looking the Brit in the eyes.

"Well, what we've determined so far is that the cause of her illness is at the genetic level, an anomaly there. Due to Kira's healing time, and the presence of the synthetic sequence in their genome, I think it's safe to say that the scientists who worked on the project manipulated their DNA, inserted something quelque chose qui est appelé, something called a transgene." I paused, watching him nod his head. Either he actually understood what I was talking about, or he was an excellent actor. I took a slight pause to get my own thoughts in order, while I fidgeted with the sticky, powdery gloves on my hands. I always hated the way they felt. My words, the things I wanted to say felt all tangled and knotted up. I'd spent so long with these theories in my head, that it almost seemed foreign to speak of them.

"Anyway, when a scientist inserts a transgene into something's genetic makeup, there's a certain… margin for error, that one must contend with. The added gene may go to a spot on the chromosome where it accidentally deletes or overrides a healthy gene, instead of going somewhere else where it would cause no harm, which may be the case with the other clones as they haven't shown symptoms. If that happened in the case of Cosima and this 'German' she once mentioned, it could have caused the anomaly, or made them more susceptible to a virus or something, any number of issues." I finished. Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Cosima's breathing, low and even, music to my ears. But I knew that wasn't the case, she wasn't here tonight. Alison was having some sort of important meeting at her house, and despite my protests, Cosima insisted she was well enough to attend. Of course, I was worried about having her so far away, what if she had another attack? What if it was worse than before? What if Sarah and Alison don't know that helping Cosima lean over and rubbing her back is the easiest way to ride out the coughing fits? Milliers des questions ran through my mind, worrying myself distraught like an anxiety-stricken parent, but there was an upside. With her not here, I was able to fully focus on the work at hand, without any possible distractions. C'est un double-edged sword.

"Okay Madame Curie, what I hear you saying is that her DNA's all sixes and sevens, and that's because the scientists at this mysterious institute buggered something up, but what about this elusive cure you've been chasing like it's a bloody white rabbit?" I refrained from correcting him that Marie Curie was a chemist and physicist, not an immunologist, but that didn't mean that it wasn't the first thought in my mind. I opened my palms in a supplicating gesture, motioning for him to 'hold his horses'.

"The cure… that's une peu plus inconnu, a little less concrete. My hope is that, by shutting off or overriding this faulty gene, her cells will stop degenerating, and she'll recover. Initially I was leaning towards some sort of lung transplant, since Sarah and Alison have the same genetic makeup and would be ideal donors, but if any other clones have this faulty gene, we'd be back where we started." Plus, something I didn't mention, was that I felt like I had no place sitting Sarah and Alison down to essentially beg them to each give up a lobe of one of their lungs. We all just reached the point where they're no longer scowling at me distastefully, nowhere near the level of intimacy and trust needed for me to solicit their organs.

"There's research into stem cells, but we don't have the equipment here to do such treatments, and they're experimental at best. So I'm going to try to use gene therapy. It basically involves taking a virus, replacing it's genetic material with the gene you want to introduce into their genetic material. It basically takes advantage of the normal cycle of viruses, by having the virus invade the cell and then insert the genetic material—in this case the gene you've selected, in DNA or RNA—into the cell's genetic material, and as the cell divides it divides with this new gene as a part of the genome…" I continued, explaining the process until I saw Felix's glassy eyes staring off into space. Of course. I supposed that to the layperson it wouldn't make much sense either. A part of me was glad he just didn't ask as to where I got these lab-grade samples of vector viruses from, as that was a long, and mostly illegal story… Felix huffed impatiently, turning around to the giant arrangement of cabinet-cubby-holes and setting up a teakettle. The door slammed open once again. All at once, the group of clones entered the loft, Sarah looking weary and a little shocked, supporting a bloodshot and drunken Alison, with the rear being brought up by a stiff and weak Cosima.

"Qu'est-ce qui se passe? What happened?" Sarah was mumbling nonstop like a radio station someone had put on low volume and all but ignored. Alison gave an ill-sounding whimper as the punk clone awkwardly laid her on the couch. All in all, the group held a tense energy. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I saw a flash of red, just the slightest smudge of it on the hem of Sarah's white shirt. I wondered if it was Cosima's.

"I knew it all along, I kneeww it Sarah, Bloody Mary and Judas Priest I knew ittt…" Alison slurred from her pose on the couch. I peeled off the pair of gloves I was wearing, hating the chalky powder left in between my fingers. My hands itched and crawled but I stayed stationary. The dreadlocked clone did the same. Everything around us moved slowly, as if the air and the passing time were thick as agar jelly. We were all specimens trapped within.

"Donnie's her monitor…" Sarah furtively replied, shifting on her feet uncomfortably. No one made eye contact with anyone else. A siren wailed outside, signalling distant chaos. The teakettle on the stove whistled. Felix made no move to quiet it. I felt like there was some undercurrent of meaning I was missing, some past event that I hadn't been around for to experience which makes all this clear and sensible. Without it, I was a microscope with a broken lens, seeing everything beneath me in the vaguest, blurriest form possible.

"Who's blood is that?" I asked, moving over to where Cosima was. The petite woman seemed to be in shock, she was deathly quiet. Lips were pursed and wrinkled tersely as if they were sewn shut. At this point in her illness, it was obvious that she was sick, especially in comparison to the other clones. Even though Alison was pale and loopy-looking, from a glance one could tell that Cosima was clammy, and had a sickly pallor. Her cheekbones were flat, tense planes upon her thinning face, she gave off a weak energy. But she was still standing, fighting, ropy and thin with bruises hidden deep beneath her skin, instead of purple and blue, a blooming red in her chest.

"I hit Donnie with a car!" Alison screeched, voice filled with some sick sense of excitement. "He was running and yelling at me and I ran him over and it was good…" she trailed off in a broken string of hiccupping giggles. Felix and I both went stone-still. The pink, yoga-pant wearing clone sounded like some crazed murderess. I quietly feared for my own health. The teakettle screamed, building up tension and calling for attention. Sarah cleared her throat and stumbled forward a few steps. Ma chérie was cold in my arms.

"She didn't run him over. She found some paper or file or something on DYAD Institute letterhead folded into one of his shirts. She confronted him, he yelled, and ran off, presumably to inform Leekie, or his handler, or whatever bollocks this stupid thing entails. We dragged her out of the house—after she'd somehow gotten ahold of a bottle of wine—and sat her in the backseat of our car. We were just about to drive away when he ran in front of us, screaming bloody murder about us needing to stop. There was no way we could have avoided him." Cosima was shivering at Sarah's recounting of events, I rubbed her arms like it would make some sort of difference. Like physical warmth could thaw this icy-clawed grip of shock. Alison let out a loud snore, passed out already.

"I got out, took a look at him, he was laying on the ground, groaning and hollering angrily something awful. Then we drove off. 'Figured whatever one of Leekie's little pawns he had called would find him." She sighed, voice rough and garbled like a phone with a bad connection. Like driving into a dead zone. Like being cut off. Her eyes were the color of two leads, greyed and heavy, swinging tenuously from two plumb lines, pitching and swaying and looking for solid ground. Cosima shivered.

"Well then, Dreads and our own Madame Curie can take my bed, I'll take a chair, and Sarah can share the couch with Ms Mariticide-in-the-making, yeah?" he quipped, looking to his sister for confirmation who just shoved Alison over roughly and stretched out on the couch, eyes slamming shut like doors. I almost felt guilty for sleeping in Felix's bed, when the man had already been a fairly gracious host, but I could see why he said so. Because she was ill, Cosima needed all the rest she could get, and because she was in shock, she needed someone familiar with her. Felix knew that, though I suspected that if I brought it up he'd quip some dry comment about not having changed the sheets since our last 'romp' together, making it impossible for him to sleep there. I nodded graciously, walking Cosima over to the bedroom-area and closing it off from the rest of the loft by letting loose the heavy, velveteen curtains. Button-by-button I undid Cosima's red coat, shedding the extra layer and laying it neatly over the back of a chair. She blinked owlishly, looking even smaller without the bright colored outerwear. Pulling her into my arms, I set my chin on top of her forehead and held her close.

"What is wrong ma chérie?" I prompted, fumbling for the zipper on the back of her blouse while still keeping her close. She was exhausted, and somewhere around here there was some form of pyjama to change her in to. She shivered and shook, trembling all over. When she tried to talk her lips quivered. Her voice wavered. Everything about her erratically screamed instability.

"I was sitting there and the car hit him, right on the front, it hit him and I screamed I think, I think I screamed and he made a thud and the car made a thud and there was blood on the windshield and on Sarah and Alison was laughing and I couldn't look away from it all, it hit him, he fell right over with screaming breaks and thud and Delphine…" she rambled brokenly, her voice cracking and her sentences breaking and everything about her current state of mind fragmenting like fine china when slammed against a wall. I rocked her against my chest, cradling the broken genius. It had been a long day for all of us, and for Cosima it meant that the last few events in said day hit her pretty hard. I let her cry and sob and cough against my chest. My skin grew sticky with tears and slick with blood and damp with heavy breaths and breaking words but I didn't move. I soothed her, I tugged her shirt over her head, pants over her ankles, slipping a loose tank on her instead. She shivered once more, but she refused the longer shirt I offered. Instead she quelled the shaking by tangling herself in me, arms wrapped like cocoons as I cradled her among the maroon sheets. I waited until the shivers quelled, until the tears dried, until the coughing subsided. Waited until she was asleep and safe, and then and only then, did I let my eyes slide shut, dreaming about nucleotides, A, T, G, C, A, T, G, C, A, T, G, C, A, T, G, C, over and over, in muted shades of grey and green, all the while as a teakettle screamed, forgotten.

**A/N So yeah, I don't quite like Donnie, so I fancied getting him out of the way for a little while at least! Plus after the golf-club incident, I could so see Alison being abnormally okay with having hit her husband with a car… Cosima's reaction however, unlike Alison, who's a little scary at some points, and Sarah, who's not a murderer or anything, but she buries that sort of 'softer' side of her in order to do what she has to do, I think Cosima's a little less used to all the death and such surrounding the cloning. She's spent a lot of her time in a laboratory setting and such, and hasn't really been in the thick of things, plus at this point she's physically exhausted from the illness, and a little emotionally-whacked, so I figured she'd take it a little harder… so that's my rationale for that! Anyways, thank you for reading, as always feel free to leave a review!**

**Translations:**

_**Vous voyez… **_**You see**

_**De toute façon… **_**Anyway**

_**Quelque chose qui est appelé… **_**Something called a**

_**Milliers…**_** Thousands**

_**C'est un…**_** It's a**

_**Une peu plus inconnu… **_**A little more unknown**

_**Qu'est-ce qui se passe?...**_**What happened?**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N Hello all! Goodness, it's been a crazy first-week-back-to-reality, and now we're heading back into the second one! I hope you all out there are doing well, hopefully a little less stressed than I. Between a huge English presentation I have to do in class tomorrow (wish me luck!) and a certain amount of drama surrounding a teacher and a few homophobic slurs made by said teacher, and finally the Golden Globes (which Tatiana Maslany is gonna take by storm next year, I know it!) it's been a bit of a hectic weekend, but I wanted to post a new chap, so here it is! Enjoy!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black!**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Eight

Morning has a peculiar method of creeping inward. It's like sitting in a room, cold as can be, as someone incrementally increased the temperature. You'd immediately swear that you were still cold, but close your eyes for one second, perhaps two, or even a handful, and you feel tendrils of warmth stirring in your core. You wonder how they got there, snuck below your skin without letting you aware of it. in the city, it was the softest part of the day. Void of yawning midday chaos, and cordial evening chats and conversation, and the electric thrumming drum-beat of dusk and nightlife, and even the misplaced action in the greyish, bleary-eyed nighttime. It came unceremoniously, unlike everyone who lived here, populating the streets with strangely euphonious shows of bright personalities, fractured pieces, pinhole-camera-eye views of lives. Morning's garments were gauzy and plain, shades of taupe and watered-down honey, draping shapelessly, obscuring where her face peered from the sun. Cosima was never much of a morning person, but I always had a soft spot for the time. Sometimes I wished she'd wake early, so that she could finally see how indescribably gorgeous she looked in morning's robes. I could never seem to find the words. But at the same time I wished she'd sleep, so I could continue, each morning, to search for them.

The dreadlocked woman was calm when I woke, laying heavy in my arms, curled softly like a cockle shell, dully shining. Her heartbeat was soft and even, nothing like the racing, raging timpani of last night. I hated to see her under duress, but last night was even more peculiar. She wasn't under duress, or in pain, she was completely numbed. It was even scarier. It reminded me too much of the nerveless, response-less, cold clutch of death. The thought made my heart jump into my trachea. I had to breathe around the throbbing mass, coaxing myself to calm down. Hands twitched, bereft of tools. I lurched up from the bed, staring at the time with sleep-blurred eyes. Five-thirty, silent, unblinking, early in the morning. On bare feet that fit into notches in the floor, I padded across to the kitchen-lab, chancing a look over at the others. Felix was snuggled into a little, uncomfortable-looking ball on the same chair he'd collapsed into the night before. Sarah had somehow sprawled out on top of the entire couch, limbs stiff and stretching like a starfish, with her messy hair off in all directions and her face buried in the cushions. Alison, the clone who was still drunkenly groaning, had somehow ended up with the worst deal. Elle dormait sur le plancher, on the rug that she'd just vaccumed the day before. Presumably she'd fallen during the middle of the night. None of them were disturbed by my presence. I took my samples out and placed them under the microscope which I'd just turned on, listening to the sprawling device come to life as I reached for gloves, my abandoned goggles, and a pipette. I had been trying for days now to isolate the correct gene for insertion into the viral capsid, but it simply kept eluding me…

"Merde…" I murmured as the tools in my hands slipped. Eyelids blinked sleepily shut. This lack of rest was becoming quite taxing upon me. I returned to the work however, determined to get some viable samples so I could test their effectiveness on the in vitro cells I'd cultured. They'd only be viable for a certain period of time, I had to hurry…

"Delphine?!" someone cried, voice sounding detached and scared. Cosima. I jerked upwards from the microscope, smacking my goggles against something and jarring my head. I set the tools down neatly, peeling off the gloves and removing the goggles in the neatest yet most rushed manner possible. I heard her cry out once more, paired with an equally plaintive query into where I was. Bare feet slapping against the wood floors, I darted over to the bedroom, tossing the curtain aside before the dreadlocked woman flung herself into my arms, tears already leaking out of her eyes. Elle ressemblait à un enfant se réveillant d'un cauchemar. I held her close, the shaking, coughing bundle.

"I'm here ma chérie, I'm here." She let a little keening sigh, trembling a little more before pulling away a little, her heartbroken face filling my view. She was so brave, not letting any of this show, being strong and intellectual on top of everything else, all for the others. It made her bare fear even more striking.

"I saw a man almost die yesterday…" she started, snatching a tissue off of the bedside table where the pastel-shaded box stood like a garish sentry, and using it to dab at her eyes before spitting out a mouthful of blood. I kept her close, so I could feel the ridge of her hip against mine, so I could keep my arm wrapped all the way around her waist. For a second, I couldn't even think of tests or vectors or genetics or science. Cosima was everything I ever knew, in those few seconds. In those few seconds, my only purpose in life was to chart the topography of the rolling muscles in her back, or count the striations in her gold-flake irises.

"I saw a man almost die and all I wanted was for you to be there." She admitted softly, head curled downwards like a green, blooming palm frond. My heart cracked down the middle at the soft tone, words that simply hit the required resonant frequency for the muscle and sinew and soul to shatter.

"I'm trying to fix you mon cœur…" I murmured, my chin atop the soft ridges of her dreadlocks against her scalp. She nodded quickly, nearly shifting my position, but I held fast. I got what she was getting at, of course. I had basically been spending every single waking hour bent over a microscope, or doing research, or writing down results or findings. Considering the fact that I haven't slept more than ten hours or so in the past week, I've been pretty short on time. But now that she mentioned it, that guilt that I'd shoved aside because I thought I was helping, slowly resurfaced.

"I know, I know, and you're running yourself ragged doing so. I know it's probably selfish and stupid of me to have even mentioned, but I just didn't want to let the feeling stay all locked inside where it could just build up, and up, and fester and spread and eventually lead to issues which you wouldn't even know the cause of—" I cut her rambling off with a kiss, soft and tentative enough that she could pull away and wouldn't feel stifled, just the slightest brushing of lips against lips, the slightest sign which told her softly, '_enough_'.

"Ce n'est pas stupide, ou egoïste. I am sorry ma chérie…" I murmured, when she hushed me with a similarly-soft brushing of lips. She didn't even speak, n'est pas nécessaire, all she did was shake her head 'no', before leaning forward, putting her weight against me. It was something I had noticed over the past few weeks, her slowly-encroaching weakness. She got short of breath if she was standing for too long, or had to walk or run quickly. She was more inclined to lean against things, or sit down, anything less strenuous. Even as she leaned against me, I could feel that she was lighter, that perhaps her shoulders were a little bonier, that her skin felt slightly cold. Everything felt like a warning sign, like a noose around my neck. Time was the only difference between Cosima being healthy, and her being unwell. Her soft little voice, and her plaintive, lonely tone had shaken me though, and now the only thing that was more important than observing the results of the introduction of my genetically-modified adeno-associated virus into the in vitro cultured cells, was making Cosima happy.

"Return to bed mon amour, I'm just going to fetch us some coffee." I murmured, pecking her on the cheek, before guiding her by the hand, like someone out of a fairy tale, back towards the rumpled blankets and pillows. I headed over to Felix's ancient coffee maker, scooping in some archaic grounds, made sense for a man who seemed to live on tea, and set the thing sputtering away before noticing a red blinking light over by the countertop. My cell phone. I strode over, bare feet still thrumming softly against the uneven flooring, trying to remain quiet for the other three sleeping people as I opened the BlackBerry.

_New information has surfaced. Need you to meet me at DYAD to discuss next steps. Urgent._

_-Aldous_

The text message sent my stomach spiralling downwards, following a similar trajectory as the phone as I let it fall from my hand, thudding to the ground before lazily returning to a black screen. It was obvious at this point that Leekie would know something was up, whether it was because of the news of our affair circling the DYAD laboratory floors like a dirty celebrity tabloid, or the fact that we hadn't been in communication for the past three weeks. I'd almost forgotten about him entirely. There had been rumors that another operative of his, a handler for one of the monitors, had been silently killed off after betraying him—against his will nonetheless. What he'd do to me if he ever found me again… well I didn't want to consider that. Instead I kicked the phone under the countertop, so Leekie's messages could remain with the floor dirt and grime where they belonged, and filled up two cups of coffee to return to Cosima. The petite brunette had curled up comfortably, leaving ample space for me to lie down beside her. It was still early morning, and the city outside had hardly woken up. I could still pretend that, just like the usual chaos outside, I could shut off the chaos in my mind for a few hours. Cosima moved so her head was atop of my chest, and I simply reveled in her warmth. She's simply miraculous. Every facial expression, every freckle, every strand of hair or glance or thought, each neuron firing, was a miracle of science. A miracle which, may have been unethical and questionable and highly illegal, but it had still brought forth this woman, this marvel of existence, from all its darkness and mire. For that I would be eternally grateful.

"What do you think our life could have been like? In twenty years? In fifty? Y'know, if I wasn't dying and there wasn't all this cloning business…" Cosima trailed off, fingers doing a waltz across my collarbone, sashaying up the column of my throat before pirouetting before reaching my chin. Her tone of voice was flat, flat and lifeless like cold marble coffins and crossed hands. It chilled me. It was a lack of home I'd never seen before.

"Will, what our life _will_ be like Cosima. You're not going to die." I rebutted plainly, hearing the words run right off of her like bullet-sharp raindrops off a silvery-tin roof. She isn't going to die, at least not until we're old and grey. Not until she's won a Nobel prize or something of the sort. We aren't nearly finished yet. There are a million different things we've yet to do. The rest of our life, our life—singular as I didn't have one without her, was a vast, yawning expanse before us. I objected to her painting it black and tolling funeral bells before the appropriate time. She hummed her disagreement, knowing I couldn't rebut with words something that wasn't even said in words. But I wondered, what would our life be like? It was like… imaginer, imagining. When I was un enfant I'd sit by the big window in my childhood maison, building walls out of cushions and using my Maman's silk scarves like curtains, laying them atop the haphazard bundle so the only thing I could sense was the faintest glow of light from the window, and the light floral scent of her perfume. I'd do all this, and I'd sit in the semi-darkness and pretend that outside of my little walls, lay something miraculous. I'd hear the thumping footsteps of Papa through the hallways, and imagine it was the sound of wild animals treading about a dense jungle. I'd count the points of light that shone through the weaving in the silken fabric and pretend that they were all stars, that I was exploring new galaxies, all from in my little walls. Over time walls of pillows became emotional walls, and finally, the miraculous, incredible things were real enough that I could risk leaving my walls, it was worth it.

"Well, I'd take you to France of course. we'd see all the sights, and I'd teach you enough of the language simply so I could hear you speak in that adorable American accent of yours. We could travel the world, learn new things, absorb new cultures. We'd make crazy science…" I smiled coyly, watching her eyes twinkle in remembrance of the new term.

"Lots of crazy science. The craziest science possible." She smirked back, grinning from ear-to-ear in that terribly, insanely, adorable manner of hers. Her smile was the one thing in life that was perfectly pure, that no evil or malice had ever tainted or sullied. It was beautiful, and becoming more and more rare in my world.

"Vraiment. Then perhaps we'd settle down eventually, get jobs in a facility that had simply begged to have us work there, we would be that brilliant. Hopefully it would be nearby, so we'd be near your sisters, and Felix too. At one point one of us would finally cave in and propose, because we'd just be so insanely happy that we'd both be waiting for it. We'd get married… goodness the ceremony would certainly be peculiar. Alison would make the entire thing pink, and Felix would organize some sort of insane after-party, and Sarah'd stop us all from going crazy with stress." The idea seemed very plausible. Cosima and I, married. If it did happen I'd certainly be delighted. I've never met anyone whom I'd wanted to spend the rest of my life with more.

"Kira would be the sweetest little flower girl." Cosima added wistfully. Her face and eyes softened, the type of soft expression that one only gets when speaking about something they love. It was peculiar to see, because I knew she'd never even met this child, never having ever seen a photo or anything of what she looked like, yet she was simply so smitten by the existence of her. It spoke volumes about Kira and her ability to wrap people around her little fingers. It also spoke volumes about Cosima, and her immensely caring nature. She's just so incredibly nurturing. It was almost fascinating to ponder, from a scientist's point of view, to analyze the bond these women had. It was something incredibly rare, deeper than family.

"And then we'd find a place to live, because certainly Felix will have kicked us out by then. It would need to be somewhere like your old apartment, all eclectic and quirky, I always loved being in your house. Everything in it reminded me of you. I just felt so warm there. Perhaps we could have a child? A cousin for Kira and Alison's children? I could just picture them running around, with your dark hair and your fiery, curious nature." I had closed my eyes at this point, imagining the scene I described as it flickered like a projection in the back of my mind, shaky and jerky and blurry like a home movie. Secretly, I did dream of that, kids with Cosima. A little fille ou garçon always in motion, bouncing and darting about like an atom, who had a Mom and une Maman, and who'd constantly exploring their big, magnificent world. Someone who could make it clean and whole and wonderful again. Something perfect and pure. Cosima had closed her eyes as well, mimicking me, though I could feel that she was indeed concentrating.

"I can picture blonde hair instead of brunette. Y'know, and perhaps lacking my shitty DNA." She smiled softly, sadly, as the words came out waterlogged and wistful. I wanted to protest, tell her she was perfect and just brilliant overall, but she also had a point. Kira was an anomaly, the child of a clone, and with Cosima's genetic anomalies, we wouldn't know if the faulty gene was something she could pass on. And she would never, ever wish this sickness on a child. That I know for sure. I hummed softly in the back of my throat, ignoring how my voice cracked, while gently stroking the scientist's cheek. I had a particular thing for her face, her neck, how the slightest touch upon her cheek could guide her into a kiss, how warm and soft her skin was. There was something particularly intimate about the gesture.

"How's the cure coming anyhow? I'm sorry I haven't been much help, I'd foreseen playing a bigger role in helping you, because you're overworking yourself terribly, but with all the research Sarah already has me doing into our origins, simply so we can try and keep a few steps ahead of our creators, and with the Alison issues, with the contract and Donnie…" his name stuck in her throat, I made a soothing, murmuring noise as I stroked her cheek, wishing I could have erased that particularly traumatic memory from her brain. Her head shifted, burrowing down in the maroon sheets, creases forming. Ripples of red, like waves, a cyclical tide, like the red in her lungs. She was alright this morning, perhaps only a little short of breath, but no major episodes. Perhaps the bed rest is a good thing for her. Her seeming improvement, or lack of deterioration was probably more accurate, still didn't distract me from the other signs that had started to make themselves evident. Her ribs rose and fell, gaps between bone, visible just beneath her whitewashed skin. She was a little more listless, a little more reticent to eat, a little bit weaker. I pulled her a little closer to me, laying her head on my chest, stroking her arms and her back, just hoping that I could give her some comfort.

"I'm getting somewhere. I just need to do some more testing. Not much longer." I murmured, truthfully. The last line, though only leaving my lips once, ran laps within my mind. Not much longer, not much longer, not much, hold on, wait, not much longer. Internally begging, buying time. The fleet-footed steps of the words pounded, pittered and pattered, sped up my heartbeat, made me worry. Nerves jangled like loose keys, like bridles on taut-necked horses, like the clinking of empty cans, tied to strings, that I might never hear. Cosima sensed the worry, grabbing for my hand and holding it against her chest, so that her heartbeat reverberated through my palm. Despite outward appearances, the ever-collecting frailty, her heart was a metronome, warm and regulating and slow, a simple beat, steady enough for one to compose a symphony around. I tried to emulate that. There was a slight scratching in my stomach in my palms, a burning in my occipital, the twitch of someone craving nicotine. I wasn't a chronic smoker, but with all the stress recently, it made sense that I'd be craving that familiar reprieve.

"Yeah?" The dreadlocked woman whispered, eyes closed lightly, like crepe paper curtains over vibrant windows. Even when I closed my eyes, I could feel her in my mind. Somewhere she'd found a door, a window, an entrance, and she'd let herself into my mind. She was a guest there, an honored one, one that I wouldn't like to leave.

"Oui. Tu ne me quittera pas." I hummed, the words not even making themselves present. Tentative. Light from outside spangled our skin, the covers, my hands, painting everything in opposing watercolor hues, that contrast yet blend. I hear a groan from outside. The velvet curtains wrap in front of us, blocking out other detritus, other thought, other. Until it's just Cosima and I, sleepy and dreaming, hidden away, speaking words, silent like stains. Irregular, imperfect, fading but never disappearing. We pretend, we imagine, until the curtains are pulled back, peering inwards on our little bubble, and the illusion is broken. Then, through the hanging fabric, thin and permeable, yet impossibly strong armor against reality, truth slips through the crack, and wraps its cool manacles around my wrists, and drags my mind on bare, reticent feet back out to my research and my worries.

**A/N Hmm, well I haven't forgotten about Leekie yet, have I? I wonder if he'll crop up in any other way in the future… and I apologize if some of the more 'science-y' portions didn't make sense, in a way I didn't really intend them to, just another way of getting into Delphine's character. But if you do find it interesting, feel free to do some research, it's fascinating stuff! All that's pertinent to the plot as of now, is that Delphine's working her little French derrière (behind) off to find a cure! Take a second, leave a review, pretty please?**

**Translations:**

_**Elle dormait sur le plancher… **_**She slept on the floor**

_**Elle ressemblait à un enfant se réveillant d'un cauchemar… **_**She looked like a child waking from a nightmare**

_**Mon cœur… **_**My heart**

_**Ce n'est pas stupide, ou egoïste… **_**It isn't stupid or selfish**

_**N'est pas nécessaire… **_**It isn't neccessary**

_**Mon amour… **_**My love**

_**Maison… **_**Home**

_**Maman… **_**Mother**

_**Vraiment… **_**Really/truly**

_**Fille ou garcon… **_**Girl or boy**

_**Oui. Tu ne me quittera pas… **_**Yes. You will not leave me**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N Gah, I'm sorry for the delay in posting this! My exams literally start tomorrow, but I figured writing was a heck of a lot more fun than studying biology (plus c'mon, science girlfriends, nucleotides, A, T, G, C, it's all essentially biology!) so I decided to post this! Thank you for all the lovely support, and to those who reviewed the last chapter, I can't thank you or express my appreciation for your appreciation enough! Happy (or not-so-happy, who knows?) reading!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black, I simply enjoy borrowing the characters!**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Nine

_I cracked open one of Felix's windows, wrapping my sweater, loose, clumping-woolen armor that smelled like incense and dust and Cosima's smile. Little familiarities, comforts I've chosen to surround myself with. Cold fingers reach through the winking eyelid of the window, breezes that drag their fingertips from my neck to my toe-tips. Cold and acutely-painful like scalpels, but cleansing and pure as well. I looked out upon the snowy streets, looking downwards to a spot in which I had occupied at one point, moons ago. Footsteps and snow had covered it. My fingertips still dully ached, nicotine cravings that had never quite gone away. I had given it up though, a while ago. For Cosima. But it didn't mean that it wasn't still there, just below my skin, ghosting over my shoulders, light and ticklish like distressed wool. It settled in my lungs. Another familiarity, simply one I didn't choose. Life really was all that, choices, a series of yes and no, up or down, rise or fall, this or that, one or zero. Like binary code, stitched with silvery thread, glistening in your peripheries, but never right ahead of you. So that when you searched for them, they blew around you, like winter breezes. Like slideshows or movie reels, frivolities. One giant contradiction. My arms, numb from cold, felt empty without her._

We spent the rest of the day like that, entangled in each other, comforters and imaginations drawn around our shoulders like shrouds. Sarah had peered inwards a few hours earlier, Cosima had already fallen asleep, to tell us that Alison had officially drunk Felix out of all his wine, and that they needed more. It was quiet once again, since the soccer-mom was dozing off her hangover on the couch. I lurched myself up out of the bed, walking quietly over to where my bags were lying, empty little skeletons. My clothes and belongings had long been distributed throughout the loft long ago. My life, once perfectly segregated and folded neatly together, had become hopelessly entangled in everyone else's. I fumbled around blindly in my purse, knocking against unnameable things, smooth edges, papery skins, crumpled things and secrets. Strangely, it would be much akin to what someone might encounter if they happened to rifle around inside my brain recently. Some sort of chaotic organization, a silent loudness, a melange of science and emotion, a world of complete and utter opposites. Alison, lying on the couch, gave a semi-conscious grunt. A snuffling of waterlogged lungs, stricken with another sort of terminal deterioration. Sadness. Betrayal. As soul-starving and fatal as a cancer or disease. I empathized with her, with her plight. I too, had been deceived by Leekie and his promises. The difference though, was that Alison's entire life, all her love, had turned to be a lie. She'd lost her husband, her children, her home, her security, and somehow she was still fighting. Strength must be a genetic trait. Just as I felt the edges of my cigarette box against my fingertips, an ungodly buzzing caused my fingers to slip.

"Merde." I growled, before looking across the room. The red 'new message' light from my phone was blinking from its position underneath the countertop. Blinking, constantly refocusing, a cold, patronizing glare, not unlike Leekie's own eyes. I ignored it; I didn't even bother to shut it off. He'd taken enough of me, my independence, my future as a scientist, my body, years of my life. Even more years' worth of stress. I refused to allow him even a minute more. Instead, I reclaimed the palm-sized box of cigarettes and a lighter, before padding over, barefooted, to the door. I wasn't really quite sure where my shoes had disappeared off to, for all I know, Sarah had taken them by accident. One of the perils of cohabitating with five people, constantly on the move, I suppose. As much as relaxing with Cosima, getting a rare chance to talk to her, had been a reprieve, I'd ever-so-slightly been missing the solitude afforded to me by a quick break for a cigarette. The door grated it's complaint as I hauled it open, tossing about the still air. That was something I'd noticed about the city. Despite all the helter-skelter, hustle and bustle, all the actions that one would think would keep the air churning and roiling and difficult to breathe, there were actually little places with peace. Alison groaned at the little noise, but all she did in response was clumsily wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand, before burrowing deeper into the couch. Her cheeks glistened as she moved, damp with tears she probably wasn't even aware she was shedding. She didn't deserve to be so alone in it all. Shifting weight from foot to foot, I walked over with trepidation, timing my footfalls with the far-away sound of Cosima's breathing. For a few seconds I stood awkwardly, hands shuffling about in halted half-gestures, unsure of what to do. I draped a blanket, this loosely-bound tartan throw from the back of the couch, over her quivering shoulders. In the same moment, before my boldness wore off, I gently swiped my knuckles over her cheek, wiping away a tear that sat there. Blurring the silvery tear-track lines.

"Delphine?! Where are you?" Cosima called from the bedroom, voice bleary with sleep, sounding a little alarmed. She sounded slightly calm though, not a shout of panic, simply one out of concern, locating. I straightened up, keeping my voice low and quiet.

"Just stepping out for a second ma chérie, just sleep, I'll return soon." I promised, the words falling flat on their faces as if having tripped over themselves. Something was off, something made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle with nerves, but I couldn't, how do they say, je ne mets pas mon doigt sur-la? I shrugged it off, assuming that it originated from some stupid feeling. Probablement the cold or something. Sliding the door open just a crack, just enough to squeeze my hips through, before sliding it back in place. The lock clinked in the jamb, unlocked, or in this case, un-screwdriver-ed. I'd need it that way to get back in though, especially if Cosima took my advice and went back to sleep. She was quickly going frail. Alison, I doubted would even wake. Gravel rolled and skittered beneath my feet, jabbing into the soles there, as I wrung out my own soul anxiously. I could immediately feel the temperature drop as soon as I stepped down the stairs and out into the back alley, narrowly avoiding the dripping slush and the cool, curvetting winter breeze. The alleyway I stood in was a clashing of all different textures and colors, flashing swooping painted images upon the walls, dissonant sounds of horns and yelling and the melodious ding-ding of streetcars, the heavy, heady scent of exhaust, tobacco, and spices and grease from local restaurants. There was so much to take in that it took me a good five minutes to absorb it all before I actually fished for my cigarette and lighter with shaky fingers. I couldn't let that anxious feeling go. Music from a nearby street performer drifted over to grace my ears. I noticed a twinkling of glass, like painful glitter, shimmer up from the side of the road. More fumbling. The end refused to light. I closed my eyes and rested my back against the walls, feeling the cold slowly enter my lungs, feeling the warm, foggy breath leave, feeling the wintry air around my bone-white feet. Perhaps I should have brought shoes.

"Hello Delphine." A muttering voice, a familiar, growly mutter. I dropped my lighter in shock. I felt as though the approaching person had physically accosted me, the presence was such an unwanted surprise. A shaky breath left my lungs, and my corpselike toes curled against the ground, looking for an anchor. I should have brought shoes, I should have checked my phone, I should have considered the dangers, I should have kissed Cosima goodbye. I should have known better. Heavy boots sloshed about in the rot-grey slush. Dreadful, icy hands pierced my skin, mucking about in my guts, clenching and seizing. I should have thought. Ce n'est pas possible, this isn't true…

"Aldous." I whispered, the name spiralling off into the gale on a puff of moisture, freezing opaque in the air. His name sounded like a heart smacking dully against the floor, it tasted like bile and sulphur and all the empty space left when false promises shrink in upon themselves. How had he found me here? Had he tracked my phone? Was there some sort of associate nearby who tracked my comings and goings? I hardly left the four walls of Felix's loft, who could have possibly spotted me? This was our safe place, the hideaway, the one corner of the universe that DYAD hadn't discovered. And he'd found us. Somehow, someone had led him straight to Alison and Sarah and Cosima. He'd take them with him, somehow, he'd lay siege to the entire complex if he had to, he was a cold-hearted man, and he'd stop at nothing to get what he desired. Olivier Duvall. He'd betrayed Leekie, against his own will, and his death had quietly circulated DYAD's clandestine hallways much like a phantom. His infidelity had earned him a syringe of a potent neurotoxin in his foot, a quick death. What lay in wait for me? And, once he plowed through me, tossed me aside like the wrapper off a candy bar, it would be so easy for him to take Cosima away. She'd go to one of their facilities, dying as a prisoner, as their property. The thought made my mind turn as ashen as the muck and mire around us.

"You didn't reply to my correspondence. Perhaps you wouldn't have been so shocked by my appearance if you had." His voice was firm and cool, like marble. I couldn't tell whether it was threatening or not. I had yet to turn around and see his face. Just the sound of his voice sent unpleasant shivers down my spine. The spot on my neck that he'd last kissed pulled and itched like a scar. My heartbeat thundered in my palms, and I listened. Listened to the distant breathing of buildings, the pulse of the ground, flowing through pipes and asphalt, a still-yet-beating heart. Anything other than him. I didn't want to hear his words. That's all they are, words. Meaningless syllables, sounds and shapes, lip and tongue and throat, that some arcane person, eons ago, had assigned meaning to. Why do we even all pay them attention? Whomever invented them all was long gone, numbed by sleep's malingering half-brother, they'd never feel the sting of insult. And it's rare that words are actually used for any good or truth nowadays. Anything necessary to convey, didn't need words. Cosima promises love and forgiveness in the slightest winged-blink of her eye or grasp of her ever-busy hands, Felix chuckles softly, tosses a pouty smile, a wordless vow of acceptance, Sarah burns with a protective nature, too vast to be fit into the banal boxes of vocabulary. Even as vast as it may seem. One thing for certain, I refuse to be Leekie's acolyte any longer.

"Ce n'est pas le problème." I murmured, not trusting my voice not to crack. I kept my eye-line low, not trusting my eyes to stay guarded and stoic. I leaned against the wall, not trusting my legs not to shake or quiver. Trust was scarce overall. I'd long let the cigarette drop from my fingers, I wished that I'd at least gotten the chance to actually light it. I wondered if it'd actually calm my jangling nerves. I truly didn't have anything to say to him. The silence just stretched between us, pulling until it was physically painful to me. I swore there was a tether attached to the side of my ribs, pulling at the flesh there. If Aldous felt the same, he didn't show it. I'd always wondered how human he truly was, he always had the feel, the demeanor of marble. Perhaps the frantic ticking noise I heard wasn't a figment of my imagination, but the sound of his own mechanical heart beating beneath his stony skin.

"Well, quelle est le problem, ma chérie?" he asked, walking up behind me smoothly, deep voice rumbling like the brewing growl in a tiger's chest. I held still, keeping my composure, until I felt something upon my shoulder, creeping, heavy, and colder than the air in which my breath hung like stars. His hand. And then I lost it. Up until then, Leekie had been a subject embroiled in confusion in my mind. The past few weeks with Cosima had put me into this single-minded headspace, focused on one thing and one thing only. Leekie's arrival had scattered it, like ripples in a still pond, shattering the calm. But he was confusing, his entire existence was wreathed in conflict in my mind. Because at one point, he was someone whom I'd forced myself to love. He was both someone I hated, yet someone whom I was begrudgingly entangled with. Until he touched my shoulder. The revulsion at his touch was so potent, like a shot of adrenaline to my veins, like the overwhelming scent of bleach or ammonia or sulphur or something else strong and acrid. It overwhelmed everything else.

"Salaud! Ferme ta gueule!" I cussed, spitting out the acrid words like they were venom, like they'd do any damage. They were feathers I was throwing and he chuckled, like they amused him. That was the most frightening part. That I was angry beyond belief and he felt so self-assured that all he could do was chuckle at the silly little child throwing fluff. I was trapped and weak and all I had were words and feathers and bone-white bare feet. What the hell am I even thinking? Nothing, I'm thinking nothing, all I can think is the heartbeats that already throb in my palms, craving action. Adrenaline runs in my veins and I feel cold not-breaths from Cosima's dead lips against the back of my skull. My throat shrinks yet grows, and the voice which once prowled like a rogue tiger, all sharp fangs and pelt-full-of-flames intersticed with slashes of black like knife-gashes, is now a mewling kitten, a pathetic lump of fur, rat-grey and limp. Leekie's presence makes my peripheries buzz and my eyes dilate and I feel my body wanting to run, and all of this is called fear. I turn around. There's a cold-muzzled kiss, toothy and menacing behind the cold burn of gun-metal against my forehead.

"No, no, Delphine. We need to talk." His voice was so low, so calm, if I didn't know better he would have sounded perfectly trust-able. But that was the stupid side of me that trusted him, stupid, stupid, and now I was trapped like prey in his sights and Cosima needed me to be strong. She needed me to be not-prey and to fight and cure her and be so many things I didn't know how to be, but I wanted to know. I didn't want to talk. I wanted to come out here, smoke my cigarette, think, clear my mind, and then return to bed, where Cosima would teasingly complain about my cold feet, and I would kiss her long enough to distract her before brushing my icy toes against hers. She'd squeal, and I'd laugh, and we'd be able to pretend everything was normal. Leekie stared at me as I was lost in the fantasy, the imagination, looking at me with the same confused awe he used when he talked of the clones. I could see the hands though, hundreds of greedy tendrils of his snatching away my happiness and my memories until they were no longer mine and Cosima's, but his as well. He didn't get to have that, he couldn't have her. I closed my eyes, feeling the black gun against my forehead. Its heaviness didn't feel threatening—yet. I was so far-gone, so spiraled with my thoughts outside of my own head, that I felt disconnected from my body save for the laundry-line of disarrayed musings.

"You don't get to have her, or me. You're a liar." I tossed back, remembering how the words had rolled off my tongue weeks earlier, when I was with Cosima. How 'liar' had jumped in to place where another, more cowardly 'l' word had once taken up residence. I wished to say that here too, but he didn't get to have that. He didn't get to have any part of our love. But he knew. His eyes were X-rays and he could see right through me. It was why he was so eerily-good at his job. Because he could read people like they were a barcode. If Cosima was 324b21 in his mind, then what was I? Was I just as unimportant? 'Slavishly-Devoted Employee Number 1001'?

"You know how this has to go Delphine. I can't have loose ends, not in my organization. You, the monitor-turned-lovesick-fool, are certainly a loose end." He recoiled, striking me upon the forehead with the butt of the pistol, using the force to unseat my balance and shove me out into the open. Like someone kicking a horse to get it moving. I wasn't even as immaterial as a clone, he saw them as assets, quantifiable values to be studied and experimented upon. Values to be… patented. I shuddered out of revulsion, and cold. I was just a replaceable adherent, someone whose memory could be lost beneath the eagerness of the next foolish scientist who wanted to dip their foot into the staining tar-pool of this great discovery.

"You betrayed us. I had a future to offer you, with DYAD, you could have become famous, world-renowned, Doctor Delphine Cormier. Just think what our research could have yielded, what DYAD is currently doing. Transgenic organ transplants, farming embryonic stem cells, our work could have rid the world of disease, of illness. No one would die waiting for an organ transplant, no one would ever have to watch their child die of leukemia or their parent wither away from neurodegenerative diseases, you could have been a part of that, but you can't see past what is right in front of your faces. That those experiments, those clones, that _it_ is a sacrifice we must make in order for progress." It. It. He said it. I wasn't sure if he was still thinking, I couldn't get my mind to move past from it. It it it it. Cosima is not an it. She cannot be summed up in those impersonal two letters any more than she could be summed up by a tag number, scrawled upon petri dishes and case files. I snarled in the back of my throat, the noise fell out of my mouth with the same unceremonious thud as my heart did when it fell from my chest. When Cosima told me she was sick, when it all began. When the possibility that, this human being I'd molded myself around, might disappear from beneath me, like the ground falling from my feet, became evident.

"Is that all they are to you?! Clones? Experiments? Inanimate objects? Possessions? Cosima is not any of those! She is a woman, a beautiful woman, one with thoughts, emotions, feelings, complexities, one who's so painfully human that it practically kills me. Elle est une fille, une petite fille qui est peur, et magnifique, et miraculeuse, et ne sera jamais votre propriété. Elle ne sera jamais une possession, et surtout pas la possession d'un menteur ignoble salaud comme toi!" I shrieked, my francophone accent heavily layered upon my words long before they actually curled and changed to fit my mother language. I knew he spoke French, he'd understand well enough. All he did was chuckle, standing there with that sanctimonious smirk and his pistol—safety flicked off—pressed against my forehead to. I had an urge to wipe that stupid smirk off his face, gouge my nails across is face until his rugged-yet-enigmatically-attractive appearance was marred with blood, red hot blood like the blood brewing in Cosima's lungs. The blood that was there because, in all his illegal work, he managed to fuck up something in her genetics. And yet he could still smirk, smirking like he was some sort of foutu God. Untouchable. A gleaming case of self-apotheosis, a hangman's noose braided from thick strands of hubris alone.

"She's sick. Your precious 'experiments' are dying and you don't give a damn." I looked him straight in the eye, and watched, with pride, as the untouchable man suspended in those two occluded spheres of ice, fell to his knees in shock. Leekie hadn't known she was sick. His defeat made my own lips curl into a smile, pointed at the ends like a scythe. For once in all that I knew him, I swore I stood taller than he did.

"All because you messed something up. You took this beautiful human being and played God, and you made a goddamn mess of it all, and now she's dying, and so am I, yet you still sit upon your gilded throne and act like science and knowledge make you better than everyone else when really you're just as flawed as everyone else! Just a tiny, tiny man wearing God's robes, playing dress-up like a child, pretending he has all the power in the—" my rant was cut off by a warm hand smacking me upside the face. My ears were ringing, and I wondered where it had come from considering one of Leekie's hands was on the gun's handle, shaking and trembling as it braced itself against the trigger, and the other was rubbing against his short white hair as he realized he had messed up. I wondered why the slap didn't sting, why the warmth remained clinging against my cheek. My hand came up to cradle the injured cheek, eye blinking rapidly, spitting curses and staggering on numbing feet. my right ear was now whining with a high-pitched frequency, I wondered if a slap could break an eardrum, even though I didn't even feel any pain, but I felt blood… hot, sticky blood was in my eye and all over my cheeks and face, but I couldn't feel where I was bleeding from, I couldn't feel anything. For a brief second I worried he'd shot me, but I still felt no pain, I was fine, all I needed to do was clear the blood from my eyes. Hopefully whatever was bleeding would clot quickly. I removed the hands from my eyes, staring at the red in my palms, before slapping them over my mouth at what I saw just past my fingers. I felt iron and warmth against my lips and tried not to retch. It all fell into place. The blood wasn't my own, I wasn't injured. Leekie was lying, only recognizable by his black coat he had been wearing when he was upright seconds ago. Where his face was supposed to be… only red and blood and bile rising in my throat as I stumbled and gagged to the tune of someone emptying the chamber of a pistol. A bleary-eyed, pony-tailed brunette assassin clad in a pink pullover and expensive grey yoga pants stepped from out of the corridor that led up to Felix's apartment. Smoke still spiraled from the muzzle of the gun that she cradled elegantly, with a fluid curve of wrist and a poised spine, no indication she even registered the shot she'd fired into the older man's head.

"Ali-Alison…" I coughed, trying to get the bile out of my throat and chest, getting the stinging out of my lungs, swallowing away the urge to be sick. My throat was scratchy and my face was sticky with someone else's blood. The prim brunette sighed exasperatedly, like I was a child who was dawdling and not struggling not to be physically ill after having a man shot to death in front of me.

"Sarah and Felix will be back any minute, I'll go with them to get rid of the body, you need to get cleaned up." She announced, dragging me by the arm upon numb feet, gravel and concrete that scraped but didn't hurt, as my numb head bobbed on my shoulders. Blood was all I could smell and I could taste it on my tongue and I felt it drying in my hair, and this clone was going on like we were preparing for a potluck or something. Like what just happened hadn't even happened. I wasn't sure whether to feel disturbed at her nonchalance, or grateful that she may have saved my life. Before I knew it I was outside Felix's door and she was heaving it open with her little body, stopping only to turn and look me in the eye, voice lowered a few octaves. Alison looked nothing like she had an hour earlier, asleep and oblivious, weakly curled into the couch, crying. She was stony-faced now, resilient, hyperaware. Her hand softened against my bicep, and I let her make the gesture. It was the closest sign of trust she'd shown me in forever. Her hand was warm and it molded to my arm, but it wasn't like Cosima. She looked like Cosima, but she wasn't her, and I needed her. I needed the smell of vanilla and cinnamon and cannabis and lavender. I needed bracelets that jingled like sleigh bells, rings that clunked hollowly when they were removed, hands that loved. I needed, I needed, I needed, so many things, I needed Cosima, and she wasn't there. I even needed her coughing, the red, the rusty breathing, I needed anything, and this weak gaze, tentative hold from Alison was barely enough to keep me stable. My lungs were gasping like sparrows, swooping up and down in an erratic flight. I heard the trill of songbirds, perverted and unnatural, whining in my abused ear. The warmth of the building felt like a lighter against my toes. I wondered where my lighter had went. If I ever needed a cigarette, it was now. The taste of smoke and nicotine would mask that of blood and I could just pretend to be oblivious. Someone shook me to attention. Alison still stood there.

"He was going to kill you." she offered, eyes shifting and changing like mercury droplets, flashing like lights, warning lights, street lights, taillights, stop. I tried to catch a breath before it flew away from me.

"Th-hh-than-thank y-yyyy.." I stammered, unable to articulate words before the door was hauled open and the shearing noise sounded like the earth being torn in two, the gravitational field being unstrung, the universe imploding. Cosima's arms around my neck felt like home.

"I'm here, I'm here Delphine, It's okay, you're alright." She repeated, but all my ear heard was that monotone keening cry. She was shaking and I wanted to know why until I realized I was shaking. Alison was gone and the door was closed and there was warm water on my face and socks on my feet, and Cosima cooing in my ear. The washing cloth she held was dyed pink. She wiped blood off my lips and I wondered when the roles had become so reversed. She couldn't stop kissing me and talking ,and quivering and all the actions got so muddled up that her lips were still murmuring mantras against my neck and face, my clean temples and cheeks, rubbing my arms and soothing. I stopped seeing. Her voice became slightly shrill and she had me bend over and breathe deeply. I stopped seeing though my eyes were open and I didn't know how to breathe deeply. I didn't want to. Because the seeing would come back and then I would see all the blood and death and fright. She made me though, her voice was so low and lulling that I had to be calm. I could still feel, yet it took time to realize she was still there with me. I could hear, but it never seemed to click that Cosima was singing softly, something mournful and earthy. Her voice was lovely and raw and pure and I wished that I could kiss it and let it take me over. The gleam of her glasses emerged from the darkness that wrapped me like rough wool. I felt her place blankets around my shoulders, she crawled beneath them and laid against me, hugging me tightly to her warmth her vitality. Her living. Her humanness. I remembered a study about deep touch decreasing pulse rate, metabolic rate, muscle tone. How hugging was proven to calm down children with autism. Things about cows in chutes before being slaughtered. About hugging machines. Cosima wasn't a machine, she was better. She made me better. I took a breath, a deep one, clearing the clutter from my mind. I looked up, and I was held within the grasp of her warm gaze.

"Thank God you're okay." She murmured, and then she was kissing me on the lips. My body reacted, my mind reacted, calming down, becoming malleable beneath her firm grasp. Her hand was on my cheek, stroking in little motions, cleaning away the memory of the blood there. I clung to her for dear life, for fear that if I let go, I would float away in the dark tide, like a ship loosened from its moorings. She held me in, sheltered me, but somehow couldn't keep away the storm in that part of my head, the little part that remembered the taste of blood and smell of gunfire and the visceral feel of someone—even a lying bastard like _him_—dying before my eyes.

**A/N yeah, I decided to kill off Leekie, he knew too much about Delphine and the clones, and he wasn't quite impotant enough to DYAD for what I have planned… anyway, you know the drill, please leave a review if you'd like, thank you for reading, and for those who don't know much French (there was a little more than usual since Leekie's apparently fluent in the language) here are the translations:**

_**Je ne mets pas mon doigt sur-la… **_**I can't put my finger on it…**

_**Probablement… **_**Probably**

_**Ce n'est pas possible…**_** It's not possible**

_**Ce n'est pas le problem… **_**It isn't the problem**

_**Quelle est le problem, ma chérie… **_**What is the problem, my dear?**

_**Salaud! Ferme ta gueule… **_**Bastard! Shut the fuck up!**

_**Elle est une fille, une petite fille qui est peur, et magnifique, et miraculeuse, et ne sera jamais votre propriété. Elle ne sera jamais une possession, et surtout pas la possession d'un menteur ignoble salaud comme toi! … **_**She is a girl, a little girl who is afraid, and beautiful, and miraculous, and will never be your property. She will never be a possession, and especially not the possession of a despicable, lying bastard like you!**

_**Foutu… **_**Fucking/damned**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N hello all you lovely people! I'm almost done with my exams, one more to go (Physics, ugh, and how much I'm looking forward to it) but here's another chapter! Thank you for reviewing the last chapter, I can't describe how happy they make me! I wanted to post this one sooner, but between studying (or trying to) and other projects I've been working on (I've been writing a Soccer Cop oneshot, as well as an original story) time's been a little tight. But here it is, happy reading (or not-so-happy, as it's kind of angsty)**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black!**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Ten

_I could feel it beneath my veins, like a tattoo that never quite healed, pumping and pulsing as my bloodstream filled with tar. My skin was turning black from within as the tarnishing memory leaked from the crack in my heart. Thinking about it all, I could still feel the warm, ferrous taste of blood against my face, almost as if it was a dream. Everything was murky and watery, but I could still remember distinctly. Even though it had been a while, and time and death didn't cleanse him of his awful deeds, the death of another person, someone I'd known and talked to, was striking. It left a heat-seared mark, a brand upon my psyche. I was a scientist, I became one to help people, to save lives. Watching one be taken was so perverse. But I could feel it, them, all these lives, weighing in my hands like grains of salt, slipping through the cracks of my fingers and over the cusp of my curled palms. I couldn't handle it all, yet I could. I let the cool, slicing breeze from the open windows tousle my hair, and listened to the grains tickling against the floorboards._

My head was throbbing, and my sinuses burned, like I'd been crying during the nighttime, acidic tears. For the second that I lay there, tangled in sheets while suspended in the lazy grip of sleep, I felt the slightest chill, a feverish coolness upon my spine. It was as if an illness clung there. My face still felt dirty, I could taste the filmy metallic cling of blood in the back of my throat. For a second, I wondered if this was how Cosima felt. Sleepily my hand darted out, surveying the blankets around me and finding no one. The dreadlocked brunette stood waiflike, her blurred form silhouetted against the silvery light of the window. She was hunched over, curled like the shell upon her wrist, a long, cape-like sweater hanging gauntly over her frame, head bent in concentration. My research papers lay in her hands, finger-pads dappled with ink stains from poring over them repeatedly. She was oblivious to my gaze, the picture of naked worry. The sick feeling that sat upon the nape of my neck, sweating and breathing like a laboring animal, rescinded upon itself to an insignificant buzzing. I couldn't allow myself get distracted from my purpose. Cure Cosima. My first trial, testing the viral vector, the possible cure, on some isolated cells hadn't taken. They'd reacted poorly, withering away, becoming dead. The second trial survived the introduction, but the replacement gene failed to integrate. I had pages and pages worth of failed results, pages of failures now smudged with the clone's fingerprints. I was closer to a cure, but she was also closer to… she was closer. Her cheeks, once flushed a pale-pink, were as blank as ivory canvases, her eyes sang a monotone, hollow tune. She was withering away. Not trusting my feet, I sat up, aureate hair falling in my eyes as Cosima took notice of my movement. Her delicate figure became rigid-straight, the papers fluttered from her shocked grasp, falling to the ground like the bowed wings of dead birds,

"Bonjour ma chérie… tu sembles peur…" I croaked, voice raspy and unused like an old violin's strings. I longed to clutch the bed sheets up around my shoulders, which were bare. I supposed that Cosima had taken my shirt off, there was probably blood on it, but my arms also felt hollow without the scientist's presence. Standing up, I pulled the imperial-red sheet out from the bed and draped it over myself like a robe, the tail of which dragged against the floor as I tiptoed over.

"There's something wrong… I don't know what it is but there's something not going right…" she murmured, shaking her head slightly. I came up behind her, enveloping her in my oversized blanket-cape as I read over her shoulder. There was a cool draft against my neck from the window she'd opened earlier, wreathing us in a damp, smoky coolness, tainted with city air. Our breaths were transformed into pale gouts of fog, materializing and disappearing within seconds as it drifted like a spectre.

"I will find it Cosima." I responded resolutely. I needed to believe that, it's all I have. I started reading the text, values I'd transcribed from an earlier trial, before my focus dropped off. I've read over the same pages thousands of times, I could recite them ad nauseum from memory. I was sick of the failures. Each paper she flipped over, creased neatly at the corners like lapels on a pallbearer's suit, crackled like her lungs. Breaths were quickening, I could feel her muscles tensing and releasing against my bared front. Every turned page was a new failure. I couldn't deal with it. I snatched the last page from her hands and crumpled it up, tossing it into the corner and ignoring her worried look.

"I've got the values memorized Cosima. I don't need it." I convinced, turning her around so she was facing me. My hands on her cheeks were cold, and the breath that feathered against the edges of my thumbs felt too hot and sickly. As soon as I touched her, she tucked her chin down against her chest, perhaps being coy, perhaps feeling ill. Her skin certainly felt clammy. The movement, however, made evident a weird shadow-like area beneath her jaw.

"Cosima, soulevez-cette s'il vous plaît? " I asked softly, nudging her chin upwards with one finger, an ivory crook to lift her gaze. The skin of my hand was a translucent blue in the frigid light, veins lay just beneath as inky, sinewy trails. She let out another clammy gasp, before acquiescing, eyes sweeping past my gaze and up towards the bare-beamed ceilings of Felix's loft. There, just nestled against her collarbone, about as long and wide as my thumb, was an irregularly-shaped blemish that hadn't been there last I remembered. It was dark as a leech, but faded out at the edges into a veiny violet-red. Internal bleeding. I rubbed my thumb lightly over it, feeling her wince and tense before looking back into my eyes. This time, it was I who avoided her gaze, blinking rapidly to deny the tears while trying to find out what to say. She knew that she was getting worse, there was no sense in lying, but there was also no sense in the painful truth.

"Peut-être c'est un petit bouton qui n'avait pas guérir?" perhaps it was a hickey of some sort, one that hadn't healed yet? It was better than speaking what I knew it meant, that the tissue damage was spreading. I had asked hopefully, my voice dripping in euphemisms, yet my eyes cold as gunmetal and sober as the face of a worried doctor. Cosima's eyes, dulled from their usual gleam, fell to the bare, visible patch of my chest, watching it rise and fall as she let the truth, which wrapped around our necks like nooses, sink in. Her skin suddenly felt exponentially clammier, and I reached behind her to close the open window, to stop the draft, when her arms—with a surprising amount of force—wrapped around my neck. Her mouth was upon mine fiercely, feet scuffling amongst the papers, lying prone like exhumed corpses that vultures had picked clean. As she kissed me all I could taste was blood and desperation, and from behind closed eyelids I saw flashes of curved rib. I'd never seen her like this, so unilaterally focused, so desperate, so viscerally human that it was beautiful and painful. Her tears smeared my cheeks and her tongue tasted like redness. Underneath my crimson-red cape of sheets, her hands pulled at my bare skin, desperately grabbing and groping with such animalistic need. I could feel shortened nails cutting into my spine. My arms were around her too, so tightly that I could feel her abdomen curving into my own, conforming and amalgamating as we became one. Beneath my vermillion wings of silk and stitch, her small frame found shelter. There was breathing amidst the kissing, heavy and wet, until the crying overtook the breathing and the breathing depreciated into gasping and kissing so strong that she stole breaths from my lungs I was willing to give. But the crying and the gasping had overtaken her breathing, and I broke the kiss.

"Shhh, ma petite, mon cœur, ma chérie, mon amour, ma vie, mon raison d'etre, mon chouchou, ma mie, mon ange, mon trésor." I whispered against her forehead, trying to stem the overwhelming emotions that were threatening to overtake me. Each breath was a struggle for her to take. Each of my breaths was struggling. All at once I couldn't be enough for her, I couldn't hold her as tightly as I desired, I couldn't embrace her as fully as I needed. Even the simple repellant forces between our atoms, the reason I could feel her muscled skin heaving against mine, was too great a distance. I'd give up being able to feel her if I could only hold her closer. She kept kissing me, my jawbone, my neck, my eyelids, my collarbones, the tops of my breasts, sobbing with each breath.

"We have time, Alison and Sarah and Felix are out, we've got time…" she pleaded, fisting her hands in my hair and pulling me in for a deep, intimate kiss, only to pull away wheezing and hacking and gagging on blood. I lifted her up slightly so her chin rested over my shoulder, let her cling to my figure as I rubbed her back, feeling my skin go wet with her blood and her tears.

"We've got time, we've got time Delphine, we need time." She begged, hysterically now. I worried she'd exhaust herself. She needed all her strength if she was going to fight this until I could come up with her cure.

"Oui, oui mon cœur, we have time. Calme-toi, you need to rest." I murmured, lifting her in my arms so her head was on top of where my heart lay, so she was cradled against my chest. It was almost scary how small she felt, how light and delicate she'd become. I was almost afraid to touch her too strongly, afraid to open up more bruises like the one on her neck. Her hiccupping sobs slowed, her breathing levelled out, and I laid her back-first—propped up with pillows to help her lungs—upon Felix's bed. Her eyelids were already drooping from exhaustion. This wasn't the same woman who'd once sprung up from bed, wearing only a bra and panties, and had bolted outdoors in her relative state of undress to fetch ice cream treats. It had taken mere minutes, with her laying on her back and me massaging her chest in the vain hope that her coughing would settle, before she drifted off to sleep. Speaking of relative starts of undress, all I had been wearing up until this point had been a pair of panties and a sheet. The only clothes I could identify amongst the pile of detritus that littered Felix's floor—after the incident with Donnie, and Alison's subsequent increasing of her liquor consumption, the place had reverted back to its old state of disarray—was one of Cosima's long, flowy skirts, similar to the one she was wearing that day when we'd first made love. While wrestling it onto my not-so-identical frame, the door-metal-plate jangled in its place as a fist protested against it, causing me to yank the sheet closer around my chest, and go answer it. One by one, not even chancing a comment or weary glance at my peculiar state of dress, Alison, Felix, and finally Sarah stumbled in. The British clone, bleary-eyed and tired, dragged her feet over to where I stood.

"We dumped Le-the body and his car, in the lake a good ways away from here. Alison wiped the entire bloody thing down first 'nd all, and Felix tried his best to dismantle the GPS system so our location couldn't be tracked. Nothing should trace back to us, but we're running out of time." She signed, before continuing across the room and slumping over in a chair. I could tell by her look, and the fact that she'd stared at the bloody streaks on my shoulder and chest, that she didn't need to ask how Cosima was. She knew enough. Time, no one seemed to have enough of it. After a few silent moments, Sarah inquired as to whether we all 'wanted a cuppa' before swaggering over to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Alison's fingers stopped twitching restlessly, as the closed around the handle of a duster and she muttered a quiet 'Oh Jesus Murphy' at whatever mess she'd just discovered. Felix simply gave my chest, and his sheet that covered it, a prolonged look before huffing in exhaustion. Oh, I wondered internally, if this was the new normal, what will be happening to us next?

**A/N things are getting a little hectic down at Felix's apartment. I haven't done away with Neolution on a whole, Leekie's just out of the picture. They may resurface in a little bit, I'm just not sure whether I should use Rachel for that purpose when the time comes, or if I should create a new character… anyways, thank you all for reading, and please feel free to leave a review!**

**Translations: (it may seem like a lot, but it's only because I broke up Delphine's little string of French endearments—I must say, I love how there are so many French ways to call someone 'my darling/dear'—into separate little pieces, because there were quite a few and it was harder to differentiate them as one long list.)**

_**Bonjour ma chérie… tu sembles peur…**_** Good morning darling… you seem scared**

_**Soulevez-cette s'il vous plait… **_**Lift this please**

_**Peut-être c'est un petit bouton qui n'avait pas guérir?… **_**Perhaps it was a hickey which hadn't healed?**

_**Ma petite…**_** My little one**

_**Mon cœur…**_** My heart**

_**Ma chérie…**_** My dear**

_**Mon amour…**_** My love**

_**Ma vie…**_** My life**

_**Mon raison d'etre…**_** My reason for being**

_**Mon chouchou…**_** My darling**

_**Ma mie…**_** My dear**

_**Mon ange…**_** My angel**

_**Mon trésor…**_** My treasure**

_**Oui, oui mon cœur… **_**Yes, yes my heart**

_**Calme-toi… **_**Calm yourself**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N Wow! Well, exams are over for this semester—finally! Thank you for your good luck, it definitely paid off, and now I'm back to writing before the semester starts anew tomorrow! I've actually been going through a little bit of writer's block recently, but since I've had this story all pre-written (up until this chapter in fact) it hasn't affected the updating. But, in the past few days I've been back into it wholeheartedly, and I've gotta say, the next chapter or two are going to be a little fluffier and sweeter, which is good, because this one is a little angstier… anyways, thank you for all your reviews, and for reading!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Eleven

_The color still makes me nauseous. There isn't a name for it, that sickly melee of blood and bad spirits brewing beneath my love's opaline skin. It's the color one sees imbued in the backs of their eyelids when exhaustion takes them hostage, the hue of an illness-bound person drawing their last breath, the imprint left behind by someone long-missed. It can't be reproduced, but simply the thought of it, that macabre blooming, purple-black fronds, tended to by Death's skeletal hands themselves, sent a chill down my spine. The thoughts spawned twitches and urges, a frenzy of the hands, tapping against my things and reminiscing how that energy would have once been used to seize yet another sheaf of failed test results. I wished that, once again, she was there to still them._

"Are you using a retro or adenovirus as a vector?" Cosima asked, sweater-cape wrapped over her frail shoulders, perched on one of Felix's kitchen stools and leaning over the countertop to peer at the screen on the electron microscope until her wheezing got too rough and she had to sit back down. The internal bleeding on her chest had spread to the point where it was a curling, bruise-like, onyx patch the size of both my palms side-by-side. She caught me staring, pulled the loose, distressed neck of the navy wool garment up over the mark, before clearing her throat. Whether it was to prompt my answer or to clear the omnipresent blocking in her ailing lungs, I was unaware of, but I answered her anyways.

"Actually I'm using an adeno-associated virus, my research indicated that it had a more reliable integration into the cellular DNA, due to it's non-harmful gene integration site on chromosome nineteen, and it also has the lowest risk of becoming harmful to the subject." I replied, pointing out neon-streaked lines of research in papers I'd printed out and memorized. Her dark eyebrows, severe against her pale skin, quirked and levelled as she read through the tests. Her eyes went wide in amazement as she continued on, lips parting in an O-shape as she had her 'light bulb-moment'

"Are you lot even speaking English anymore?" Felix asked impishly, sauntering over to where we sat, boots and scarves swishing with each elegant movement. He began puttering about in the kitchen, pulling things, loaves of bread, cutlery, a jar of peanut butter, sandwich fixings out of the cubby-hole system mounted against the wall.

"I mean" he continued on, "You all had your clone chaos, and you shacked up here, completely shattered my creative environment, murdered someone, and are doing God-knows how many illegal medical tests on my kitchen counter, can you at least have the decency to keep your sexy-Sapphic-science chats to a minimum?" The terms sounded hilarious rolling off the Brit's tongue, and I barely held back a delicate chuckle. Cosima, however, let out a fairly loud snort before giggling deliriously. Felix's face softened at the sound, an expression he reserved solely for Sarah and Kira. On one hand, I was touched by the gesture, on the other hand, it showed how pitiably sick she had become. All at once, her hearty, emboldened laughs morphed into side-shaking coughs. She gripped the countertop in exertion, nearly scattering test tubes and petri dishes in her frenzy. Merde, merde, merde, I thought, leaping from my chair, shocked into motion as my feet hit the ground. She hadn't ever had an attack that was this bad, at this point the degeneration was so severe that she was mostly spitting blood out at random intervals. The dreadlocked woman's knuckles were a bony white against the countertop, and the blood that dripped from her mouth was a garish contrast to the whitish-blue color her skin was rapidly turning. By the time I had gotten over to her, the coughing had suddenly and dreadfully cut off, replaced by a soundless gulping of air, a voiceless choking.

"Merde! Felix, obtiens-la pour moi maintenant!" I shrieked, pointing to a corner in the room where I knew I kept supplies for emergency. Without thinking, my hands were on her shoulders, pulling her backwards onto her feet, keeping one of my legs in between hers and linking my arms around her waist, unconsciously running through the steps to help a choking victim. I'd taken a CPR course a while ago, it was mandatory for every DYAD employee, but I couldn't seem to put the two together. I couldn't associate the blue plastic dummy which clicked whenever you compressed its chest, with Cosima, the woman I loved who was currently clawing and grasping at her paling neck futilely. She slumped forward, and for a second I thought she'd passed out before a painful retching cough shattered my hyper-organized mindset. Through the crack in the façade, I heard Felix knocking things frantically while exclaiming that he didn't know what I'd even said. I hadn't realized I had spoken French. I hadn't realized a lot of things beside the ragged, crackling breath my love was slowly drawing in.

"Get me the thing in the corner please, rapidement, and a bucket as well." My voice felt like Cosima's coughing, like red and metal. Viscerally disturbing. I held her dreads back, away from her clammy neck, slick with cold sweat, as she continued to retch and cough up blood into the bucket Felix had provided. I couldn't tell whether she was being sick or not. The other item that the slim man had brought over stood beside us like an oversized bullet, silver and elongated. An oxygen tank. I'd purchased it when I was stocking up the 'lab', in the vain hope that Cosima wouldn't get so bad as to need it. I'd uncoiled the clear tubing attached to the mask, letting it clatter to the ground, still retaining its curl like a waking python, before offering her the mask. With spastic hands, a limb that flashed like lightning, she batted it away, with a swift and forceful feebleness.

"Cosima, s'il te plaît, utilise-la. Fais-la pour moi ma chere?" I insisted, offering her the oxygen mask once more, feeling a rush of relief when she allowed me to hold it over her mouth and nose. She drew in a few, stuttering gasps, straightening up and leaning her whole weight backwards against me, head lolling limply against my shoulder. My one arm wrapped fully and firmly around her waist, the other one was still holding the mask to her face, waiting until her hand, bristling with trepidatious strength, went to replace my own there. Through the curves of her ribs, I could feel her lungs inflating, crackling, but inflating. Her face was flushed pink once more.

"I'm-fine" she gasped through the mask, her words fogging the clear, antiseptic plastic, as she struggled to stand on her own two feet. Felix watched wide-eyed from a safe distance away, trying to feign his usual coolness and indifference, but to my practiced eye, I could see him practically shaking with a need to do something. Cosima turned around, and in the moment her body moved, I caught a glimpse of the bloodied washbucket on the floor. My eyes swam, making the redness watery and obscure, but there was a ghastly amount of blood sitting in it, and an even more horrific dissemination of flecks of disintegrated lung tissue, gouts of blood shimmering silvery against the wood floors. Ce n'est pas vrai, c'est un scène d'un film d'horreur. I looked up before the lightheaded darkness, watery obscureness of vision, became too prevalent. As a scientist I knew that a human could lose up to forty percent of their blood volume before dying. As a scientist, I knew that the average person had about 4.7 litres of blood in them, perhaps a bit less for a woman of Cosima's petite stature. As a scientist, I knew how to accurately measure fluid outputs of test subjects. But as a lover, as a loved one, as an emotional, stressed, desperate, heart-sickened, imperfect human, I couldn't begin to tell how much blood she'd lost, how dangerous that fit had been for her. And no amount of science could compensate for that. Her eyelids drooped from exhaustion, and once again, I felt her weight press against me.

"Felix, peux-tu m'aider avec elle-can you help me get her to bed?" I repeated myself, stuttering slightly as I remembered that he didn't understand French. Cosima didn't either, but she always adored it when I spoke the language. Before I'd even finished my sentence, he had already made his way over to where we stood, and taking the oxygen tank in one hand, and gently grasping the sickly clone's other arm in his other, we stiltedly led her across the room, uncoordinated feet thumping the ground. Like a hurriedly-put-together funerary march.

"Ahh, you know how much I love you and your French-y stuff…" she drawled, speaking like she was in a daze. Her eyes were glassy with exhaustion, and I could hardly see the shimmery hazel hue beneath it all. She staggered drunkenly to bed, shoving off the mask, and flopping like a wet fish amongst the blankets with Felix's and my help. I tucked the crimson sheets around her, cringing at the color, and wondering if the Brit had any other color, any color that didn't remind me of bleeding. Just as I kissed her forehead, ignoring the clammy taste of sweat there, she snagged her bone-white fingers in my shirt's collar.

"Tell me something in French. Please?" her eyes widened as I slipped her glasses off. They almost seemed too big for her shrinking frame, too innocent, too fragile. I simply had to indulge her though, and as Felix took a little stiff-legged step back, I leaned over, my soft curls forming an aureate curtain, barely brushing her cheeks, her blue-kissed little cheeks. She batted her eyelashes exaggeratedly, my poor little cyanosed Casanova.

"Je t'aime. Je t'aime plus que les mots peuvent exprimer. Ton nom met les ailes dans les limites de mon cœur. Cosima, je ne sais que j'ai ferais si je ne t'avais pas. Ma belle, tu es ma raison d'etre. Je sais que je ne peux pas promettre que je vais te guerir, mais je peux te promettre mon cœur. Et mon cœur ne sera tranquille pas jusqu'a ce que je te guerir. Maintenant, dors mon amour. Tu es fatigué, et dans le matin, je serai en attente pour tu. Je t'aime." I whispered, punctuating the end of my petite diatribe by pressing a kiss to her forehead, then one each upon the paled apples of her cheeks, and one to her slim, sleep-slackening lips. After pausing for one second, soaking up her soft aura, her familiar scent, her ever-present beauty, I strode over to Felix in the lab-kitchen.

"Well, what did you say to her?" he asked curiously, quirking his eyebrow into a saucy smirk. I shook my head, blushing terribly before prying my firmly-set lips apart. I wouldn't tell a soul.

"Rien, nothing." I shot back lightly, ending the conversation. I watched him lazily drag his fingertips across the scarred counter, watched him toss his gaze over the pile of microscopes, of bloodied, hope-filled papers and hypotheses that had all failed. This was my life's work laid out before me, my magnum opus. It struck me how, despite all the ground-breaking things Leekie had preached, I had never felt as useful, as challenged, as important doing any of his work than I did now, slaving over a makeshift lab trying vainly to find a cure. Perhaps that was a bad thing, perhaps an element of mundane-ness was important, perhaps my emotional investment here was slowly driving me crazy. But not for a second since I stepped into this loft, had I ever felt like I wasn't trying my hardest, doing my best, pushing every limit possible. Of course, that led to hopeless thoughts of how my best wasn't best enough, so I cast my eyes downwards before turning back to Felix.

"Where have Sarah and Alison been all of today?" I asked softly, the sensitive tone of my voice betraying the suddenly-desperate flames of curiosity that licked and burned at my insides. What were those two up to? They keep disappearing for days on end, coming back emotionally drained and laconic. Strung together like pearly beads on taciturn thread.

"Looking for Kira." His voice was flat, I could hear many familial worries and late nights in that tone of his. It reminded me of my tone on Cosima's cure. Unexpectedly, stilling his tracing hands which restlessly scratched at a bump in the laminate counter, I placed my hand atop his. I was given a look, but no protest. We felt similarly, our struggles and worries lashed the same marks into our backs. We were both hopelessly pursuing hope for the safety of our loved ones. And we were both hopelessly losing.

**A/N I promised you some happiness in the next chapter, and happiness I shall bring! Not to mention I can see a reappearance of a few cute little characters coming in the not too distant future… and as always, translations are below, I tried to put Delphine's little spiel later in the chap so that it'd be closer to the translations, I got a little carried away… French is just such a romantic language though! Anyway, feel free to leave a review!**

**Translations:**

_**Merde… **_**Shit **

_**Felix, obtiens-la pour moi maintenant!… **_**Felix, get that for me now!**

_**Rapidement… **_**Quickly **

_**Cosima, s'il te plaît, utilise-la. Fais-la pour moi ma chere…**_** Cosima please, use it. Do it for me my dear.**

_**Ce n'est pas vrai, c'est un scène d'un film d'horreur… **_**This isn't true, it's a scene from a horror film**

_**Felix, peux-tu m'aider avec elle?…**_** Felix, can you help me with her?**

_**Rien… **_**Nothing**

_**Je t'aime. Je t'aime plus que les mots peuvent exprimer. Ton nom met les ailes dans les limites de mon cœur. Cosima, je ne sais que j'ai ferais si je ne t'avais pas. Ma belle, tu es ma raison d'etre. Je sais que je ne peux pas promettre que je vais te guerir, mais je peux te promettre mon cœur. Et mon cœur ne sera tranquille pas jusqu'a ce que je te guerir. Maintenant, dors mon amour. Tu es fatigué, et dans le matin, je serai en attente pour tu. Je t'aime… **_**I love you. I love you more than words can express. Your name puts wings within my heart. Cosima, I do not know what I would do if I did not have you. My dear, you are my raison d'etre. I know I can not promise I will heal you, but I can promise you my heart. And my heart will not be quiet until I heal you. Now sleep my love. You're tired, and in the morning I'll be waiting for you. I love you.**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N Hello again y'all! I'm sorry for the delay in posting this, but since I'm actually having to sit down, write and them proofread these chapters from now on, since I haven't already gotten them typed up neatly, it's taking me a little longer. Plus, this new semester's only just begun and it's already stressing me out, so free time is sadly, short and hard to find. But here it is! For those of you looking for a bit of a reprieve from the angst, this and the next chapter will be that! And for those of you who enjoy angst, well nothing's every really perfectly happy, and the angstiness will return soon! I totally thought this story would be shorter, but I keep getting new ideas and storylines to tie in the other clones with, so I hope you're enjoying this fic, because it'll probably continue for quite a while! **

**Oh, and one last note, the initial italicized part is the 'present' tense, but the italicized portion within the plaintext is Delphine flashing back to her first time with Cosima (1x08 anyone?) Anyway, enough of all that, happy reading!**

**-Nightshade**

**I don't own Orphan Black (although only 70 days until the Season Two premiere, is anyone else as excited as I am?)**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Twelve

_The sound of her breathing still played softly in the back of my mind. I could tell she was still sleeping soundly. The morning sun above, brimming with liquid energy, reminded me of her eyes. The colors weren't the same, no, it was the exuberance though, the unrivalled brilliance. The beauty so rapturous that centuries of artists strived to capture it, poets attempted to traverse its grandeur with linguistics, scientists aimed to simply understand it. And just like the earth, the solar system itself, all held together by the invisible pull it had on everything, Cosima's radiance, her gravity kept me nearby to her. It climbed higher in the sky, and I wanted to playfully scold Cosima for sleeping most of the morning away. Even le soleil itself paid the woman reverence, a lusty beam striking across her slumbering figure, shimmering off her skin like it was the palest rose quartz. Her hair splayed out over the pillow, soft brown. Nothing about her was angular, she was all gentleness and curves, blending smoothly into her surroundings. Slipping easily and incorporating into the once-rigid tapestry of my life._

"Delphine!" someone hissed softly, a gentle prodding in my side rousing me from the spot I was occupying. I traced the ivory finger up the arm it was attached to, eyes falling on a face that was surprisingly placid and excited. Cosima's face, pale and soft like the curve of a full moon, was gleaming. My eyes were foggy, when I blinked they prickled and burned like they'd been glazed over with epoxy sometime during the long night. I was still hunched over my work, tools still in my hands, clutched tightly while in the subdued throes of a fitful sleep. How long had I been sitting here… Merde, I was sore, simply turning to face the woman felt like an effort.

"Oui?" my voice cracked and grated, bumbling about like the hinged jaw of a cabinet. I think I'd done it last night, I think I've gotten the right viral composition. I just need to monitor the cultured cells today to see if it integrated. Dieu, I felt so close yet so far. My entire frame sagged in exhaustion as I bounded forward for that door handle which I knew would lead me from this cauchemar, the one that lay at the end of the stretching hallway. But of course, the last two tests hadn't went as well as I'd hoped, and none of this meant that it would actually be helpful when given to an actual person… a small 'pop' echoed in front of my face before my eyes refocused on Cosima's waving hands, snapping her fingers once or twice sharply to get my attention.

"Delphine? Are you alright?" she asked softly, stepping forwards a little so she could rest in between my open, slouched legs, and lay her hand on my thigh. I swore even her footfalls felt lighter, thudded a little less against the floor because of how much weight she had lost. Because she was sick. There wasn't anything that she could do that didn't remind me that she was sick. There wasn't anything I could do that didn't remind me that she was sick. Every breath I took stung in my own chest. She patted my thigh once more to re-direct my attention. Merde, je suis obsédée.

"When was the last time you slept?" I lifted my eyes, which felt like unrefined coals in their sockets, up to meet her face. It was worry-stricken, pulled and drawn at the corners like a bedsheet. The same expression I'd seen staring back at me in Felix's grimy bathroom mirror many a weary night. But this time, the flickering candle-light left on within the twin alcoves, glistening like hope-fuelled lamp-light left to await the return of someone long-lost, was put there for me. I brought the heel of my hand up to rub at my eyes, grimacing when I realized there was still a glove on that hand. The rubbery-feeling membrane was bothersome.

"Yes, oui, ma chérie, I'm fine. Comment ça va?" I responded wearily, voicing the question that tormented me hourly. How are you? Are you okay? Will this damned vector DNA correctly integrate into cellular DNA? Plus des questions, pas du temps. She felt light against my frame, but she had an energy which I couldn't explain the origin of. Her cheeks blushed, stark against the pallor of her skin, but still glimmering with a hint of a healthy rouge, and her lips were parted in a toothy smile. Sharp little canines flashed impishly. Biologically, logically of course there must have been a reason for it. Her body's working overtime, flooding her system with adrenaline, giving her the illusion of returned health when, in reality, it was throwing up its last defenses. Trying desperately to stay alive. It was wondrous, really, how the body functioned. How it would drug itself so fatal wounds wouldn't sting, neglect its extremities so what little blood and warmth can protect its vital organs. How this structure made of trillions upon trillions of tiny little living bricks will do anything possible to ensure the survival of the greater organism. Even if it only abates death temporarily. Even if it was futile and inevitable. Even if giving up was the better choice. It foolishly, like a barnacle to a ship, clings to life whilst drowning itself. Bursting with naiveté. What an imbecile. Evolution truly made a masterpiece of us. Wondrous, truly wondrous.

"Umm, it's been a long time since I've learned French…" she pouted, cocking her head in an adorable caricature of confusion. Her lower lip stuck out, soft and full, and I felt the urge to kiss it. It was a carefree-feeling urge, one that I would have had back before she started getting sicker. Before all the testing and trials and cures being hopelessly tossed about. It was like… when she had returned from getting those 'Eskimo Pies' as she had called them. I went back to lying in bed, trying to forget the horrible, awful, terrible, méprisable, nuisible thing I'd just done, as if I could cocoon myself in her soft, sweet-smelling sheets and be innocent once more. I lay there, thinking, fingering the lace on my hip and feeling awful. She'd been so kind, so attentive to me, not willing to take things any further than I was comfortable with. She made every allowance for me and my newfound fears of inadequacy, and what had I done? Stabbed her in the back. Invaded her life. Forced my way into something she hadn't yet entrusted to me. She noticed that I had been crying before I even recognized it. I was crying also when she returned.

"_Delphine? Are you there?" The door, invisible to my sightline, creaked as it opened. The sound, the voice I had been almost dreading for an undefined period of time because I knew how much guilt would come attached to it, rang like a bell in the still air. I sniffled pitifully and tried to hide my tears in the sheets that folded in my lap. It was silly, of course, because from the moment I didn't respond with a saucy "Oui, ma chérie" she knew something was wrong, certainly. She had just rounded the corner as she dropped the plastic grocery bag on her desk, uncaring that the ice cream treats would melt, and rushed forward. Her actions slowed when she got to the edge of her bed, kneeling in front of me, with her coat still buttoned tightly. I didn't want to look up, because I knew that she'd be there, sweet and kind and attentive, and being so painfully understanding when she truly didn't understand a thing. But a gentle hand on my jaw made me look up into pleading eyes._

"_Shit… Delphine I'm so sorry, the last thing I wanted was to make you do something you weren't ready for, I'm such an idiot." She dipped her own head, in shame and worry and I immediately felt bad. Because this sweet, perfect, kind and gentle woman was worried that I was upset because she wasn't good enough for me. In reality, I was upset because I wasn't good enough for her. I shook my head, my hair fluffy and in disarray from our earlier endeavors, trying to stem the tears long enough to find the words to say to her. Her utter sense of shame, of remorse though, just made everything hurt more._

"_Non, non, non, ma chérie, tu ne—you didn't make me do anything I didn't want. I wanted it, just as much as you. I enjoyed it, you were incredible and I don't re-regret a thing." My voice cracked at the word regret, because I did regret a thing. I regretted a very big thing. I regretted the spying-for-Aldous-thing. But I could also feel the tension and guilt rolling off the younger woman in waves, and there was a slight redness to her face. She was warm underneath her heavy coat. I supposed she hadn't taken it off out of worry that I was uncomfortable with her in a… lesser state of dress. At once, that carefree, impulsive side of me, the side that knew what it wanted, reached forward and undid the button near the collar, moving one by one as the coat fell open._

"_Are you sure you're comfortable? I can get you some pajamas from my drawer, or I'm sure your clothes are around here somewhere…" she trailed off, looking down at the mess of papers and clothing and books that littered her floor. I looked down, to my almost-bare chest, and found I didn't quite care. I was comfortable. Cosima had listened earlier, when we were… together. I wasn't quite ready to shed those last few articles of clothing, but she didn't mind it. I felt comfortable that she wouldn't have me do anything I didn't want to, and despite the guilty simmering in my gut, I also felt incredibly safe. I was fine, I thought, as I cast my eyes across the room, absentmindedly wondering as to which clutter-filled corner my belongings had scurried off to. In any other situation, with anyone else I would have found the disarray irksome. Cosima made it endearing though, a busy cluttered sense which mirrored the clutter of thoughts, questions, ideas whirling around in that fantastic brain of hers. She'd commented, the other day—falsely I'm assuming—that Dr. Leekie had a sexy brain. She was tellement faux. She was the one with the sexy brain. I could sit and listen to her talk about epigenetic influences on cloned cells and find it the most alluring and attractive thing possible. She could make a scientific article on the extrapolations of murine models sound like dirty talk. It was incroyable._

"_Oui, yes, just come and lay back down with me?" I asked, finally unbuttoning the coat and pushing it off her shoulders, leaving her in her bra and panties. I couldn't keep the smirk off my face at the thought of her running out to the store in such a state. In the meanwhile, as she dropped her coat amongst the nearest cairn of university-student-detritus, I allowed my eyes to tentatively wander her figure. I'd always considered myself straight, but as I ran my eyes appreciatively over her breasts and taut abs, I couldn't help but second-guess my earlier consideration. The worries gone, like clouds scattering against an azure sky, her face lit up like the sun cresting the hill, breaking out in an infectious grin that reduced me to a blushing mess. Mon dieu, she's adorable. In an elegant-yet awkward—a combination only she could embody—motion, she vaulted underneath the covers, burrowing against my side and placing her—oh mon dieu—icy cold toes against my thighs._

"_Stay still, you're comfy." She murmured into my chest, still grinning like a madwoman as she knowingly tortured me with her frozen feet, causing me to squeal and squirm about. The earlier guilt was still there, somewhere, but it wasn't accessible. Cosima's carefree, loving presence had blockaded it off somehow. I tapped lightly on the cheeky, dreadlocked woman's chin, supressing a gasp when I felt her firm, muscled abdomen shifting against my own. Cette femme sera le mort de moi._

"_You're such a—how is it you'd say it? A little shit?" I teased, pecking her on the lips softly as she simply whimpered a reply. Her teeth, those pointed little fangs that always glinted mischievously when she smiled, snagged on my lower lip softly, pulling me in for a deeper kiss while she readjusted her body, scrabbling up my side so neither of us had to crane our necks painfully to continue our current activities. When she was at eye level, her cold little feet just grazed my ankles. She was so adorably petite. There was a little nagging in the back of my mind, the reason her feet were so cold in the first place._

"_Cosima? The ice cream?"_

I missed that carefree afternoon, the one spent giggling and kissing and eating ice cream treats until they melted and dripped chocolate and vanilla all over our hands and faces and down necks and around lips. We'd stolen turns, squealing like idiots as soft, warm tongues attempted to clean up the messes. I remembered that those lips of hers, the same ones which she was pouting with currently, tasted like heaven and sugar and I never wanted to pull away from them. She'd offered me the first shower, chivalrously, respecting my space while feigning interest in a chocolate stain on her pillow case, when really, I knew she was grinning like a drunken fool and badly attempting to hide it. I missed that. Wreathing my arm around her slim waist, I pulled her in for a kiss on her still-pouting lips, lingering for a second as I felt that warmth, that carefree intimacy return in small. She let out a sigh before reciprocating wholly, throwing her arms around my neck and pressing her body against mine, exhaling softly as she continued probing and nuzzling softly at my lips. It was refreshing, something that I'd been missing for quite a long while. By Cosima's desperation, the way that she groaned and gasped and clung to me like a long-awaited breath of cool air, setting your nerve endings on fire and burning a life-feeding fire in your chest, I supposed that she reciprocated that sentiment.

"I asked you." I husked softly, able to feel the cupid's bow of my lips brushing against her pursed ones, the feeling sending a little tickling jolt of sensation down my spine. "How are you feeling?" I reiterated, watching in that tiny little part, in the corners of her softened-gold-flaked irises, as she stowed that little translation away for further reference. It always fascinated me, how intently she listened, how you could tell Cosima was paying you attention because she made you the sole important thing in her life in that instant. And in that instant, while her warm-golden spotlight shone upon your face, she'd put her entire energies into untangling every fiber of what you said. Whenever I spoke French, she didn't just blush and giggle and swoon—although that also seemed to be an enjoyable effect of my mother tongue—she'd listen. She'd pay the closest attention possible, searching for meanings, pulling apart structures and tenses and accents to suppose at what I was saying. She mulled over the question briefly, answering nonverbally with another enrapturing kiss, a quick pecking of lips which lit briefly on the tip of my nose before she leaned back in my embrace and grinned.

"I'm feeling well. Better. In fact, I was wondering if we could go out?" she did a shrugging motion with her shoulders, jutting her chin out in a tentative, waiting motion. She had done the same gesture back when she had made that silly comment about inviting Leekie to our dinner, about how I was single. She must do it when she's waiting for answers, and she's unsure she wants to hear the response. There are so many little intricacies, behavioural quirks which she does, it was fascinating to observe. Just like how she listens extra-closely when I'm speaking in French, I'm constantly trying to understand her body language. Trying to decode the meanings and the translations in this language which was unique to Cosima. She was so vibrant, her actions seemed to be extensions of herself, when she simply had too much energy or passion or feeling to hide in static stances. Or course, the idea of her going out worried me. Indeed, she was feeling better, but the attack the other day, the one which was so bad she required oxygen, still clung to me like the sickly cloying taste of cough medicine, long after you've fallen into the drugged, restless sleep.

"Are you sure ma chérie?" I asked, slightly concerned, leaning my forehead against hers, my unconscious method of checking her temperature. Her skin was warm, but not clammy as it had been earlier. She's developed reoccurring feverish bouts recently, but of course, that had receded ephemerally during her current state of illusory wellness. I'd developed many of these subtle little tricks, early on when I wanted to check up on her, but when she wasn't quite feeble enough to laconically accept the treatment. A kiss upon her forehead is usually a quick indicator of a fever, fingers wrapped lightly around her wrist could perhaps, pick up a pulse, if I held them still enough. Laying against her chest makes it easier to hear the crackles in her lungs. As much as denial, that sweet, tempting drug, was useful as a lover, I was also a scientist. I depended on data. The more information I knew, the better. No news wasn't good news, it was utter shit.

"Well, I'd rather take advantage of this time as opposed to just… dying trapped indoors?" the words themselves still felt like a twisting of claws within my chest, talons snagging the reddened flesh of my heart, clutching it like prey and carrying it away. Dying, dying, dying, dying it was all around me. Every day, every coughing fit, every failed test, every breath she took, sounding closer and closer to that infamous 'death's rattle'. The sound a person makes when they've got nothing. Caused by an accumulation of saliva and other secretions in the throat. The inability to remove them. The thought made bile rise in my throat, and I had to brace my hands on Cosima's shoulders and lean forward. My lungs heaved desperately and my tongue curled acridly at the haunting thought. Cosima. Dying. Not just slipping away peacefully. Dying. Bed-bound, gasping and suffering until her last breath, crippled by a fuck-up, intrinsic to her DNA. My eyes were blurry with tears, and I could feel little kisses being pressed to the back of my neck, prickling like marble-cold droplets of fear-sweat. She murmured, allowing me the moment to regain my breath after 'dying' had kicked me in the chest. Her hands, fisted in the wrinkled lab coat upon my back, held herself steady for a second more. She was so put together, and it both worried me and comforted me that she seemed so… at peace with her own mortality. I nodded, trying to pull myself together for her own sake, wiping a gloved hand at my eyes and nose.

"D'accord mon amour, anything you'd like." I acquiesced, listening to her lungs heave slightly, stalling before breaking out into drowning laughter. Her chuckles crackled like bubble-wrapping, the fluid in her lungs almost settling. It was jarring, this crackling, like Cosima trying to snap back into her earlier lightheartedness. She smiled once more, but this time it didn't light the lanterns that hung suspended in her eyes. It was more for my sake than hers. Our hands were interlocked, an unconscious gesture of solidarity, and before I could comment any further, sour the already somber mood, she interjected in a weary-yet-cheery tone.

"Well in that case, I have a few ideas."

**A/N thank you for reading, and a belated thank you for all the reviews that you guys have left on my past chapters, they're totally, totally awesome, and they're what keep encouraging me to write and post new chapters! So, feel free to leave a review on this chapter, and I'll try and get the next one posted super-quick!**

**Translations:**

_**Le soleil… **_**The sun**

_**Dieu… **_**God**

_**Cauchemar… **_**Nightmare**

_**Merde, je suis obsédée… **_**Shit, I'm obsessed**

_**Oui, ma chérie… **_**Yes, my darling**

_**Comment ça va… **_**How are you?**

_**Méprisable, nuisible… **_**Despicable, harmful**

_**Tellement faux… **_**So wrong**

_**Incroyable… **_**Incredible**

_**Mon dieu… **_**My god**

_**Cette femme sera le mort de moi… **_**This woman will be the death of me**

_**D'accord mon amour… **_**Okay my love**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N and finally, here it is, the promised dose of Cophine fluff! Hopefully this'll make the hiatus a little more bearable, only 50 more days to go until season two! I'm incredibly sorry for leaving thos for so long, but school has been crazy busy, and I've hardly had time to sleep, let alone write! Plus I'm trying very, very hard to convince my parents to take me to the upcoming Comic-Con convention near where we live, since Tatiana Maslany and Jordan Gavaris are going to be guests there! If I got the chance to see them in person I might just die, so if this story doesn't get updated for a long while you'll know why. ;) all jokes of course! Seriously though, thank you for reading, thank you for all the lovely reviews I got for the last chapter, and I hope you enjoy this one!**

**-Nightshade**

**I do not own Orphan Black**

Of Microscopes and Bloody Hopes

Chapter Thirteen

_She was so mischievous. Cheeky, was the word I think… it was tainted slightly by the ugly imprint left upon it when Leekie's chalk-thin lips had spoken it. And I wasn't quite sure if that was even the best word. Elle est mignonne, tres mignonne. Very, very cute. Si ce ne semble pas trop godiche a dire. There was no one word that really suited her though. You couldn't find a vessel, something so plain and pedestrian, which could hold her in her entirety. She was the sounds of leaves rustling in trees like muted applause. She was the disorganized pulse of a hundred people dancing. She was the taste of a snowflake as it fell from the indigo ink-hued sky. She was the smell of petrichor after a lusty rain, earthy and intrinsic and pure. She was every miracle in the world, in human form. Someone unadulteratedly impressionante. Simply the thought alone sent me smiling like an idiot, staring into the two coffee cups I was preparing. The ancient coffeepot gurgled and growled, sounding like the jubilant croaking of frogs, strangely misplaced in the city surroundings. I closed my eyes and felt the porcelain curves smooth against my palms, and I thought of how Cosima's skin was just as smooth._

"C'mon Delphine, we have to get in line!" The dreadlocked woman pulled my hand where hers had tangled with it, gripping the connection like an overeager child. She had a certain childlike appearance, bundled up in a thick, puffy winter coat which I'd had to borrow for her from Felix, with one of the Brit's colorful scarves wrapped around her neck. The overburdening winter gear upon her petite form made her look like a schoolchild bundled up and bouncing amongst snowdrifts. Her breath hung like ghosts in the cold air, fogging up her glasses and clinging around our faces as she dragged me towards the crowded building. The one thing which weighed down her buoyant spirit was the bullet-shaped oxygen canister I'd insisted she wheel about, complete with the snakelike tubing which was currently coiled atop the device. I knew she'd hate me for insisting she bring it, the physical reminder of her illness, but I also worried about her health. She hadn't done any activities more strenuous than walking from Felix's bed to his bathroom to his kitchen and back, and this surge of energy wouldn't be forever. She was still dying, I begrudgingly thought the word. It was painful, but true. Softening the blow with euphemisms and pillows and fallacies wasn't going to help her any. If anything, the cold, gunmetal stare of truth, raking its ethereal claws against my vertebrae made me more determined to cure her. But, for these next few hours, it wasn't about truth. It was about forgetting that the oxygen tank was required, and making Cosima smile. I had certainly already cracked a wry grin as I read the sign on the front of the curved building.

"Vraiment Cosima? Un aquarium?" I cocked my eyebrow curiously, cautiously making our way up the steps to the sign which proudly declared 'Ripley's Aquarium of Canada; Enter Here'. I couldn't resist the urge to look upwards, towards the grand bâtiment qui dominait ma vue de la ciel. La Tour CN, the CN Tower, elle m'a dit c'est appelé. It was a stark grey, pointed like a sword about to pierce the winter-grey clouds above. Everything surrounding us was grey, concrete, cloud, metal, sidewalks. Cosima was the most vibrant thing in sight. She was grinning up at the tower in awe, she looked at everything in awe. That was one thing that the illness hadn't stolen from her.

"Yes Delphine, please? I want to be somewhere… full of life. Where everyone's happy and vibrant. Plus, you can't possibly be saying you don't like fishies?" she pouted, teasing adorably as she prodded me in the side, fingers crawling and jumping like the overeager, shaky steps of a child, as she tugged and grinned cheekily. I couldn't help but smile back at her. This was a foreign feeling, the smile brewing in my cheeks. My limbs moved, in a manner out of my control, like they were built out of crumbly driftwood. Every step felt stiff and unsure after weeks spent hunched over testing equipment. My clothing clung to my form in an uncomfortable manner which indicated that they hadn't been washed in forever. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd washed my hair. But here Cosima was, grinning and cheery, like the oxygen tank in her hand wasn't there, staring at me like I was the best thing in the world as opposed to just a worn out mess. It was the type of stare which made me begin to believe her.

"Of course ma chérie, anything you'd like." I replied, making a big deal out of it, dramatically kissing the back of her palm to coax a giggle from her fluid-logged throat. We went to stand in line, huddling against the cold together, standing so tightly that Cosima's brightly-hued coat was hardly visible to onlookers. I couldn't think the word nowadays without it hurting. Red. Rouge. I tried to remember other things, how it was the color of Cosima's cheeks when she blushed, how it was the color of the wine we'd stolen, how it was present in each sunrise and sunset, in broad, heavy-handed strokes upon Felix's canvases. But all I could think of was blood. But I couldn't. Like every day beforehand, I needed a task to accomplish for today. Make Cosima happy. Try to be happy yourself. The line moved slowly but surely, the two of us inching forward. The petite woman let out a shuddering cough, supressed, no blood, none of the guttural hacking I had become so used to, but it was still enough to catch the attention of others. A family ahead of us, a broad-shouldered man, a weary-eyed woman, and two antsy-looking children, turned our way. The woman's eyes filled with something I didn't want to identify as pity, hung like a lugubrious leaden shackle around my neck, forcing my head lower. She pulled her kids closer to her with red-clawed hands, before nodding her indication for us to go ahead of them in the line. She chanced one last look at the oxygen tank before deciding she'd surpassed the 'polite' amount of staring. I could tell Cosima didn't enjoy the pity either, in the way her neck strained to swallow any coughs and in how she tucked shyly into my side. Like a child meeting strangers. The woman nodded again, rigidly this time, and I wondered where the insistence had come from. Was it still considered a good deed if one held so much resentment and forcefulness in their eyes as they did it? Before anyone could speak, I nudged Cosima forward, taking the further-ahead spot in the line before refocusing upon Cosima. Her mood was no longer as carefree as before.

"Hey, ma chérie, what did the scientist do when he snuck up on the periodic table?" I asked, knowing it was silly, but hoping the cheesy joke would perk her up. Today was going to be happy, that was my daily goal, my plan for today. And if everyone else decided to stare piteously at us, then I was determined to get her to ignore all the staring. Thankfully, having studied science for a good number of years, you pick up a few jokes and geeky trucs d'humeur. The brunette looked up at me, confusion in her eyes, but I could see that small part of her brain sparking to life as it wondered what the answer was. Cette fille, always enjoys un casse-tête. Eventually she just shrugged and sighed, not knowing the answer, or perhaps just humoring me.

"He added the element of _surprise._" I answered, smiling—perhaps a little too brightly—but it didn't fail to bring a sliver of that radiant smile back into my love's face, even if it was simply the tiniest poking of fang-like canines into her rose-quartz-hued lips. We eventually made it inside and got tickets, although merde, the line was tellement longue. The inside of the building itself was colorful, and the first thing one saw was a large fish tank, filled with silvery-sided fish, their sides flashing like dimes and nickels as they all managed to swim in synchrony. We walked through the first section hand-in-hand, trying not to get lost among the darkened exhibit, packed with people all ogling at crabs the size of dinner plates, or the lobsters colored all hues of the rainbow. As we walked I felt a tug on my hand, and pour un moment I thought Cosima had stopped to cough or catch her breath. Whirling around with eyes wide with worry, I chuckled as I saw her kneeling with her face near the tank, breath fogging against the glass in little puffs, as she pointed to a bright-blue lobster half-hidden beneath a rock.

"It's so cute Delphine! Look at it's little pincers…" she murmured, talking in a high pitched voice, the type that people use when talking to babies or puppies… and lobsters too, apparently. The creature itself seemed unamused with the extra attention, and scuttled deeper into its little artificial cave. I leaned forward, shouldering my way around a small child standing nearby. Mon dieu, si Cosima voulait more people, more life, then this was a good choice. There was hardly a place to stand where you weren't in immediate proximity of at least ten other people. But they were all happy people. Happy people with families and kids with cheeks which were red and round like crabapples when they grinned their infectious little-kid smiles. And, after almost two months of seclusion and cloistering away with my science, it was a nice change. I gave Cosima the littlest peck on her cheek, which was warm but not feverish, before whispering.

"Laissez-le Cosima, I understand there's still much more to see." I nudged her law-bone, the little right-angled portion just below her ear, before tugging her along by our conjoined hands. We elbowed our way through the crowd, my skin prickling at the slightly uncomfortable heat building beneath the collar of my jacket, while Cosima talked about lobsters. She talked about telomerase, about preventing their chromosomes from shortening, about how these humbled creatures don't die of their own metabolic pre-planned expiry date. She talked about biological immortality, with a slight envy in her voice. Today was going to be happy though, so I didn't prod when it came to the envy, and I simply listened and watched in awe as, slowly, the melancholic tinge faded from her voice, replaced by her curiosity in full-force. With her spare hand, the one I wasn't grasping like a lifeline to avoid being lost in the crowd, she gestured vibrantly like a painter as she talked about the evolutionary ramifications of a creature who's biological clock never runs out. Who has all the time in the world. I, myself, became a bit envious of lobsters too. We made our way through the next exhibit, a giant half-tube pathway surrounded by coral reefs with sharks swimming overhead.

"It's kinda trippy…" my brunette whispered, leaning against my side as she watched the colorful sea creatures move all around us. It was a sight to behold, though personally I preferred the image I saw when the colors, vibrant and otherworldly, reflected in her watery gold-hazel eyes. Her weight sagged against my side, which I took as a silent cue to slow down, wrapping my arm around her waist to support the frail figure. I could feel people's gazes, again laced with pity, and for a second I wished to hide from their sight. I hated the feeling of Cosima becoming a spectacle. She didn't seem to notice, instead focusing on her own breathing, quivering yet consistent.

"Es-tu bien?" I asked softly, not making a fuss, or at least attempting to. The petite woman nodded her assent, muffling the slightest cough before stiffening. She was still for less than a second more, in a very un-Cosima like fashion, before she softened and took a few bounding steps forward and returned to herself. Always mowing, always busy, and constantly thinking. We passed an open, shallow pool with horseshoe crabs scuttling around in it, creatures that looked like giant upturned living soup bowls. It was probably for kids to look and touch the creatures, but Cosima still insisted on stopping to pat one on top of its leathery-smooth back. In a way she was like a child, comme un enfant, but in the best way possible. In the vivacious, constantly-curious manner. Again, I wondered how something as impersonal as cloning, forcing a microscopic petri-dish-bound cell into dividing, could create something so complex and astonishing and—as I squealed loudly when a cold, wet hand found its way onto my face—très frustrante.

"You little brat, you!" I hissed playfully, wiping cold and goodness-knows-how-clean watery smudges off my cheek. All I garnered in return was a look of pure innocence, all wide-eyed and soft-lipped with the slightest shrug of her shoulders, before turning away and tugging at my hand. Although I couldn't see her face, I knew she was grinning like a joker, she always loved getting on my nerves occasionally. Such a tease, this petite woman was. We passed a small standalone tank with orange-and-white clownfish, swimming around with some larger bluish fish, all surrounded by a small army's worth of children clamoring to get a look.

"Look at all the Nemos and Dorys!" a little towheaded girl exclaimed, pointing at the fish as they swam lazy circles around, unknowingly capturing every three-foot-tall onlooker's attention. And of course, Cosima's as well. I quirked my eyebrow, I didn't quite understand the reference.

"Exactly! And see those funny little things with all the tentacles? Those are the anemones, just like where Nemo lives! What's so special about those is that they…" Cosima talked to the crowd of little ones, effortlessly extolling the importance of anemones while the kids watched with curiosity. There was an ease about her as she 'taught' them, something in her words and her smile and the busy hands that were either mimicking sea anemone tentacles, or swimming like fish through the air, or pointing out one or two kids who had questions. It was cute, yes, très mignionne, how effortlessly she interacted with others, especially kids. Her own excitement about the topic was equally enthralling. In that moment, I saw a side of Cosima I'd never seen before, one I fell in love with harder than all the ones before. This one, the social, teaching, outgoing side simply exuded light and happiness and passion that made my own fingertips tingle with anticipation and radiating excitement. In the moment, she was just so incredibly free-looking. Once she finished her explanation, the small crowd of three-foot-tall 'junior scientists' had dispersed back into the crowd of parents, presumably bursting with excitement to share the new knowledge that the 'lady with the red coat and the picture of the pretty seashell on her arm' had just shared. I, of course, got my girlfriend back, whom I promptly wrapped into my arms.

"You're too cute." I murmured, feeling the blush upon her cheeks, watching the rosy tint as it crept down her neck and beneath the collar of her jacket. I absentmindedly wondered how far down it went, and silently vowed to find out soon. We walked off into the next place, a darkened room with a wall that was all tank. The only light, more of a hazy glow even, was provided by the bioluminescent jellyfish that ghosted in slow currents, morphing colors from blue to purple to red to green and back again. It was magical-looking.

"Kids are always so curious, they love learning new things, I love that about them. It's when we get older and jaded and silly, that's when we stop wanting to learn things." Her lips were at the base of my neck, and with every softly-spoken word, which I could barely hear over all the chatter of other people, I could feel them in my own throat.

"I have a question though, um, what is a 'nemo'?" I asked tentatively, getting momentarily distracted by the floating, ethereal creatures in front of us, so I just missed the utter look of shock on ma chérie's face. It was miraculous, I thought, how something so simple could be so astonishing. They have no brain or heart, but they can swim and float and change colors and captivate a room full of brain-and-heart-havers.

"You've never watched _Finding Nemo_?" she asked confusedly, and I shook my head in dissent. The next fifteen minutes of walking were spent with Cosima insisting that I had to see this movie, going on and on about it like it was the most important thing in the world right now. All we had to do was watch a silly kid's movie about a fish. We didn't have to get sick and get sad and research and watch her sisters slowly deteriorate emotionally. The rant was punctuated with a couple yawns, and I could tell by the way she walked that Cosima had been completely tired out by the day. After going to touch the stingrays—as insisted upon by the bleary-eyed PhD student who was using my shoulder as a crutch and dragging the little oxygen canister tiredly behind her—we decided to call it a day. I walked her down to the parking lot, calling a taxi to come pick us up, while the little woman rambled tiredly about all the things she'd seen today. By the time the taxicab had arrived and I'd gotten her in the car and seat-belted in, her eyes were drooping shut. With slightly slurred speech, she insisted we stop at the video store to pick up _Finding Nemo_, the fish-movie, before curling up in the seat and resting her dreadlocked head upon my shoulder. She felt so much lighter when she was asleep, like she could just float away from my grasp. All the negative thoughts I'd been keeping at bay today were threatening to make a reappearance, but I forced them away, for the sake of our one happy day. Instead I daydreamed about the foggy look in Cosima's eyes when I finally roused her, the staggering stumble she would insist was 'walking' as she struggled up the stairs to the loft. All the petite choses which made her all the more loveable. Which made her, as much as DYAD would try to claim the opposite, unique.

"Leve-toi ma chérie." I murmured, coaxing her awake and out of the nondescript car. We eventually made it up the stairs into Felix's loft, uncaring that I'd probably paid the driver double what I owed, before collapsing on the couch. Felix had left us a note, he'd convinced Alison to accompany him to an amateur production of 'West Side Story' tonight, in a vain attempt to get her out of the house and away from large quantities of alcohol. As a result, the usually-vibrant loft was quiet and still. Cosima, looking like a petulant child who was dreading their bedtime, insisted we watch the movie, and with the pout on her face and the lonely packet of microwave popcorn I'd scavenged from Felix's crazy-cupboards of food, who was I to deny her? I lay on the couch first, with the shorter woman as my 'little spoon', who currently had the bag of popcorn clutched against her chest and was playfully refusing, comme un galopin, to share. It was about twenty minutes into the movie, both of us relaxed and on the edges of sleep, when the door slammed open. Two sets of feet entered, one heavy and even-footed, while the other one seemed to be skipping or dancing, a lighthearted gait.

"Mummy look, it's Nemo!" a pure, clean, youthful voice rang out like a church bell, shaking both of us out of our tired states as we attempted to sit up and get a better look at the unfamiliar voice. A little girl, with light-brown curls that tumbled to her shoulders, clad in a warm-looking ivory sweater and bearing a toothy grin, was staring back at Sarah, who looked like she'd been to hell and back.

"You're right Monkey, one of your favorites." The British woman staggered over to where the little girl stood, placing her hands—which were cracked and bloodied on some of her knuckles—maternally on the girl's shoulders. The little one was looking at Cosima and I with wide, curious eyes which held a wisdom beyond their years, and the two of us probably had the same questioning expression on our faces. Sarah gestured lamely with her one hand, not taking the other one off the girl's shoulder protectively as she mumbled out an explanation.

"Cos, Delphine, this is—" Cosima's breathy whisper cut her off, the name slipping out of her exhausted smile as she spoke with restrained glee.

"Kira."

**A/N Yeahh, Kira's back! More about her reappearance will be in the next chapter, but I figured that after two months of constant searching on Sarah's part, and we had to find her at some point! As always, thank you for reading, and if you're feeling in the mood to be super-extra-awesome, please leave a review!**

**Translations:**

_**Elle est mignionne, tres mignionne… **_**She is cute, very cute**

_**Si ce ne semble pas trop godiche a dire…**_** If it does not sound too silly to say**

_**Impressionante… **_**Impressive**

_**Vraiment?... **_**Really?**

_**Grand bâtiment qui dominait ma vue de la ciel…**_** Large building which dominated my view of the sky**

_**La Tour CN, the CN Tower, elle m'a dit c'est appelé… **_**The CN Tower, the CN Tower, she told me that's what it is called**

_**Trucs d'humeur… **_**Humorous stuff**

_**Cette fille…**_** This girl**

_**Casse-tête…**_** Puzzle**

_**Tellement longue… **_**Very long**

_**Mon dieu, si Cosima voulait…**_** My god, if Cosima wanted**

_**Laissez-le…**_** Leave him be**

_**Es-tu bien?...**_** Are you alright?**

_**Comme un enfant… **_**Like a child**

_**Très frustrante… **_**Very frustrating**

_**Comme un galopin…**_** Like a brat/hellion/monkey**


End file.
